the work now offered to the public was suggested by the Committee of the British and Foreign Unitarian Association, and is brought forward under their sanction. It appeared to them very desirable to place before the public in general, and more especially before the Unitarians of our own time, a series of memoirs of the most distinguished worthies who have adorned our churches, and whose learning and zealous labours have mainly contributed to promote the cause of rational Christianity. It was also conceived that the practical efficacy of Unitarian principles might be well illustrated, when displayed in its influence on the lives and character of its most eminent professors. It seems important that we should know, not merely what our opinions are, but who and what our fathers were, in whose writings we find them most successfully maintained, and by whom were most ably asserted the genuine Protestant principles of free inquiry and private judgment, which, when followed out fearlessly and consistently, have led to these conclusions. That the Committee were right in thinking such an undertaking desirable will be readily admitted; how far they have adopted the best mode of carrying it into effect, is for the public to decide.

The Compiler of the following Memoirs has to crave from his readers the usual allowance to the biographer of literary men, whose retired habits and uniform mode of life commonly afford but few of the incidents best fitted to impart the kind of interest chiefly sought for in works of this class. The biography of a man, the greater part of whose life was spent in his study, must consist in a great measure of an account of what he did in his study;—of those writings, namely, by which he has often exercised a powerful influence not only over his contemporaries but over successive generations, and earned for himself a name which deserves, and is likely, to be remembered by distant ages. It is hoped that those, for example, who take an interest in the researches which occupied the days and nights of such a man as Lardner, and who can duly estimate the value of the services rendered by him to the Christian world, will not think the narrative of his labours flat and insipid, because it exhibits no extraordinary events or varieties of situation.

In some instances it is unfortunately no longer possible to procure the necessary information of various particulars relative to the personal condition and history of eminent persons deservedly honoured for their valuable writings and other results of their labours; and hence the accounts which can now be given of several individuals of distinguished merit are but meagre and imperfect. This deficiency will be particularly observable with respect to some of those who are remembered chiefly for their services in the conduct of Academical Institutions, but whose important labours in other ways prevented their appearing much before the public through the medium of the press.—To the other honoured names commemorated under this title, it was the writer's intention to add that of Merivale; but on learning that there was, at length, a prospect of the speedy appearance of an auto-biography of that excellent person, he abandoned the attempt to put together the few slight notices which are to be found scattered here and there in various publications.

In preparing the Memoirs of Academical Tutors, it will be perceived that very free use has been made of a valuable series of biographical papers inserted many years ago in the Monthly Repository, under the then well-known and familiar signature of V. F. Those who are aware to whom they were indebted for the papers referred to, will join in the regret of the present writer, that their venerable author could not be prevailed on to contribute to this work in a more substantial form than by his occasional opinion and advice.

although it was not till a much later period that separate religious societies were formed in England, avowedly on Unitarian principles, yet the profession of these principles under one or other of their various forms and denominations is coeval with the Reformation; and this faith can boast of its full share of confessors and martyrs in those spirit-stirring but troubled and persecuting times. There is good reason to believe, that even the long night of darkness which had settled on the Christian world for so many centuries, accompanied and preceded as it was by gross corruptions of the pure simplicity of the Gospel, in no instance more generally prevalent than in the errors which almost totally obscured the doctrine of the absolute personal unity of the divine nature, was at no period altogether devoid of a few feeble glimmerings of that light which in more favourable times was destined afterwards to shine out with renewed lustre. At all events, the spirit of inquiry which gave rise to the reformation, and was for a considerable time promoted and encouraged by its extensive spread, could not be limited to those questions which were chiefly under discussion between the great religious parties of the day. Accordingly, not a few assertors of Antitrinitarian opinions made their appearance in the very dawn of the Reformation.

The principal leaders, indeed, of the reforming party professed to retain, unchanged, the views of the Athanasian Trinity maintained by the Church of Rome; and it would even seem as if the very extent to which they had deviated from the standard of Popery in other directions only increased their solicitude to preserve themselves free from the imputation of heresy on this point. They were thus induced to display, in their treatment of those who had only followed out the genuine principles of Protestantism to a greater extent and with more consistency than themselves, a more than ordinary portion of that persecuting intolerant spirit which, in the language of a distinguished historian, is the deadly original sin of the reformed churches; that which cools every honest man's zeal for their cause, in proportion as his reading becomes more extensive.

Hallam. Const. History of England, i., 130.

The unhappy fate of Servetus is the foulest blot in the history of Calvin. But before his time there was no small number who openly professed the Unitarian doctrine, and among them some of high reputation for talents and learning.

Of the Italian confessors whose names impart a peculiar lustre to the early history of the reformation, not a few are well known to have rejected the Trinity, along with the other corruptions of the Romish church; some of whom afterwards became the most distinguished lights of Unitarian communities in distant lands. Many also of those who received the denomination of Anabaptists openly or covertly denied the deity of Christ. Of these some adopted the Arian sentiment, others that of the proper humanity of Christ, afterwards maintained by Socinus. A few of the Baptists appear to have made their way into England even before the half-reformation of Henry VIII., and did not escape the fiery trial allotted to such as incurred the charge of heresy in those fierce and stormy times. In 1548, John Ashton is recorded to have preached Unitarianism, and, under the terrors of the stake, to have signed a recantation when summoned before Archbishop Cranmer. In 1550, however, the Unitarian doctrine is represented as spreading with alarming rapidity, so that it was deemed necessary to resort to harsher measures. Joan Bocher, who appears, from the obscure and imperfect accounts which we have of her, derived only from the hostile persecuting party, to have been a woman of quality and consideration, is believed to have agreed in sentiment with the Baptists, in their general persuasion of Christ being not a God, but a creature. She appears to have been a zealous reformer, and particularly active in promoting the diffusion of the Scriptures; which, having access to the court, she was at pains to disperse in secret among the ladies of distinction who resorted there. For Arianism (as it is called), and some not very intelligible nicety about the incarnation, this excellent person was persecuted to death by Cranmer and Latimer. When the tender-hearted young king for some time refused to sign the warrant for her execution, Cranmer undertook to argue the matter with him; and when, at last, he yielded, the king told him, with tears in his eyes, that if he did wrong, since it was in submission to his authority, he must answer to God for it.

This noble-minded martyr to the truth, who, whether right or wrong in her opinions, displayed a spirit of which the world was not worthy, in times of unexampled and formidable difficulty, such as we in these comparatively peaceful days happily cannot easily appreciate, is unfairly described by Burnet as a poor wrong-headed woman, that was burnt for some extravagant notions concerning Christ, but was looked on as a person fitter for Bedlam than the stake.

Soon afterwards George Van Pare, a Dutchman, being convited of saying that God the Father was the only God, and that Christ was not very God, was committed to the flames in Smithfield. He was a man of strict and virtuous life, and very devout: he suffered with great constancy of mind, kissing the stake and faggots that were to burn him.

These things, as is candidly acknowledged by Bishop Burnet, cast a great blemish on the Reformation. It was said they only condemned cruelty when it was exercised on themselves, but were ready to practise it when they had the power. The Papists made great use of this afterwards in Queen Mary's time; and what Cranmer and Ridley then suffered was thought a just retaliation on them from a wise Providence, that dispenses all things justly to all. These unhappy excesses of intolerant bigotry, so inconsistent and peculiarly unreasonable in men who had freely exercised that liberty which they denied to others, testified fatally against Cranmer, when, after so short an interval, he himself fell into the same trouble; for they left him without excuse or reply, when it was alleged that, by the confession and practice of the reformers themselves, it appeared that men, even of harmless and exemplary lives, might be put to death for their opinions. But such was the delusion of the times, and the influence of a heated religious zeal, aggravated by controversy and virulent contention, operating upon ruder manners and a fiercer and harsher state of society than that which happily prevails at present.

It is not easy to assign to any of the contending parties of this distracted age a deeper stain of the persecuting spirit than the rest. If the Catholics displayed it in a greater number and variety of instances, it must be remembered that they had greater power and more frequent opportunities, and that it had not in them the same obvious and glaring inconsistency with professed principles, and with the right of individual judgment which they asserted and exercised, which marked its exhibition by the leading reformers. Even the flames of persecution directed against themselves did not check the vehemence of their animosity against those who had gone further in the same road, and pursued their own avowed principles to their natural, and, as we think, necessary consequences.

Of this a very remarkable and curious instance is recorded in the case of Archdeacon Philpot, who signalized himself by indecent and insulting behaviour towards some of his fellow-prisoners under the Marian persecution, who denied the doctrine of the Trinity and the Deity of Christ. The rudeness and violence of this conduct in such circumstances displeased many, even in those times, and he accordingly attempted to vindicate himself in a little tract, entitled An Apology of John Philpot, written for spitting upon an Arian; with an Invective against Arians, the very natural Children of Antichrist, with an Admonition to all that be faithful in Christ to beware of them, and of other late-sprung Heresies, as of the worst Enemies of the Gospel.

For the whole of this very singular piec , with a running commentary, containing many very judicious remarks on the general question, see Lindsey's Historical View, pp. 96-151.

A very remarkable contrast to the bitter violence of this railing controversialist is seen in the just and rational sentiments of a distinguished Unitarian, Acontius, who passed several years in England under the protection of Queen Elizabeth. That one thing, says he, I never could look upon but as the most unreasonable of all, that a man who is supposed to have taught any thing false or impious should be compelled, on a promise of impunity, to make recantation of it. To what end this, I pray? What advantage can be proposed by it, if the heretic, for the sake of avoiding the punishment, retract his opinion against his conscience? It may, perhaps, be pretended that those who are in the like error, and lie concealed, may thus be wrought upon sincerely to renounce it, and all be brought by degrees to follow the example. But they must have taken up their sentiments on very slight grounds who can so easily relinquish them. Is there not much more reason to suspect, that such renunciation of their sentiments may be made merely to avoid suffering? And will not this have the appearance of something very shocking and oppressive, as if the magistrate aimed not only to kill the body, but to lay a snare for the destruction of the soul too? Are we, then, so destitute of armour wherewith to encounter erroneous opinions, that we must have recourse to lies and feigned abjuration for our defence against them? It may be said that this is by no means what is intended, to procure a retractation any how of such opinions, but that the heretic may not only in words, but from the heart, abandon them. This is, indeed, finely spoken, if it can be accomplished. But what mean those fierce threatenings on the one hand, and flattering promises on the other? These may, indeed, contribute to overcome and influence the will and inclinations; but the great business is with the understanding. This cannot be affected by menaces or the most engaging allurements. They cannot make that which before appeared to be true to appear false, how much soever a man may desire it. But if this cannot be done, and a heretic, however earnestly he may wish it, cannot quit his heresy but by conviction of stronger argument against it, why should you importune and solicit the miserable man to lie, and thereby more offend both God and man.

Acontii Stratagemata Satanae; as quoted in Lindsey's Historical View, p. 75.

Acontius was a native of Trent in Italy; he was originally bred up to the legal profession, and afterwards spent most of his life in courts, engaged for the most part in laborious occupations. Having embraced the Protestant faith, he quitted his country and settled in England, where, under the protection of Queen Elizabeth, he obtained some employment connected with fortifications, for which his skill in mathematics eminently fitted him. The work from which the above extract is taken shews him to have been not only a man of an enlarged and liberal spirit, far beyond the prevailing temper of the times in which he lived, but a firm believer in the unity of God.

It is not in the unseemly spirit of vain boasting that we claim for the Unitarians in general, of that and of every other period, a greater freedom from this unchristian temper than is to be found in any other sect. It is true that the practical influence of their principles may be expected to lead to this result, because they are not called upon, like many others, to regard the right path (meaning their own path) to be essential to salvation. But, unhappily, we so rarely find men's practice in all respects conformable to their avowed principles, that this exemption is, perhaps, in a great measure, to be ascribed to the good fortune of the Unitarians, in having been very little exposed to the temptation. Long may they continue to enjoy this fortunate exemption! May the time never come when a synod or consistory of professed Unitarians shall be in such a manner connected with or dependent on the state, as to be invested with power which they may be tempted to abuse, in seeking to lord it over the consciences of men!—With good and religious reason (says Milton, in his admirable discourse Of true religion, heresy, Schism, and Toleration ) all Protestant churches, with one consent, maintain these two points as the main principles of true religion, —that the rule of true religion is the word of God only, and that their faith ought not to be an implicit faith; that is, to believe, though, as the church believes, without or against express authority of scripture. And if all Protestants, as universally as they hold these two principles, so attentively and religiously would observe them, they would avoid and cut off many debates and contentions, schisms, and persecutions, which too oft have been among them, and more firmly unite against the common adversary. For hence it directly follows, that no true Protestant can persecute or not tolerate his fellow Protestant, though dissenting from him in some opinions; but he must flatly deny and renounce these two, his own main principles, whereon true religion is founded; while he compels his brother from that which he believes as the manifest word of God to an implicit faith (which he himself condemns) to the endangering of his brother's soul, whether by rash belief or outward conformity, for whatever is not of faith is sin.

In 1575, twenty-seven foreign Baptists were apprehended, four of whom recanted their opinions under the terror of the stake. Shortly afterwards two Dutchmen were actually burnt in Smithfield, notwithstanding an eloquent expostulation addressed by Fox the martyrologist to Queen Elizabeth. To say the truth, it hardly deserved to succeed, for all he aims at is to substitute some milder form of death, thus virtually conceding the principle of persecution for opinions in all its extent. In 1579, W. Hamont, a plough-wright, of Hetherset, near Norwich, underwent the same frightful sentence. The heretical opinions laid to his charge, as reported by Mr. Locke,

See Mr. Locke's Letters to Limborch, Oct. 7, 1699.

May without impropriety be called the father of English Unitarianism; for though, as we have already observed, there is good reason to believe that Arianism spread so rapidly in the reign of Edward VI. as to excite the alarm of the rulers of the church, and that several refugees from the horrors of the Marian persecution returned home with a considerable tincture of the Anti-trinitarian views which had already been professed by some of the most distinguished reformers on the continent, and though more than one Unitarian martyr may be cited from the annals of those gloomy times, yet, as far as is distinctly known, Biddle was the first Englishman who came forward openly to vindicate Unitarian principles either from the press or from the pulpit. He also appears to have been the first to gather even two or three to offer their requests to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ in the form which may be presumed to be most acceptable to him who laid the injunction on his disciples, In that day ye shall ask me nothing; but whatever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you. It was but a little flock, and was speedily dispersed when the shepherd was taken away; but the leaven still remained to work more extensively in happier and more liberal, if not more enlightened, times. On these accounts, we justly place his name at the head of that catalogue of worthies in whose characters and history, we, as Unitarians, may be expected to take a peculiar interest, as the ornaments of our faith, and as mainly instrumental in recommending it to the Christian world, not only by their able appeals to scripture and reason in its behalf, but by illustrating its efficacy and practical value in the example they have set before us of the virtues which ought to adorn the Christian character.

Mr. Biddle was born at Wotton-under-Edge, in Gloucestershire, in the year 1615. Though he had no pretensions to the rank or eminence derived from a long line of distinguished ancestry, he inherited from his parents that truest respectability which arises from a faithful discharge of the duties of life, and which procured them, along with other more valuable advantages, an intercourse with persons of superior station. He received his classical education at the grammar school of his native place, where he seems to have distinguished himself by early proficiency, and to have attracted notice as a youth of high promise. It is pleasing to learn that there was also observable in him, at this early period, that singular piety of mind and disregard of mere worldly and temporal considerations which characterized him through life; for he now not only devoted himself to liberal pursuits and studies, but engaged with great diligence and assiduity in the assistance of his recently widowed mother.

In 1632 he was admitted of Magdalen Hall, Oxford, where he continued his studies with increasing success and reputation; and there is reason to believe that he already gave indications of that disposition to exercise an independence of judgment and freedom of inquiry which were ever after a leading feature of his character, and the mainspring at once of his eminence and of his misfortunes. After occupying with high reputation for a few years the post of college tutor, he was offered the mastership of the grammar school in which he had received the rudiments of his education, but declined in favour of a competent person, who at his recommendation was appointed. At length he was induced to accept the appointment of master of the free school of St. Mary of Crypt, in the city of Gloucester. In this honourable station, on which he entered in the year 1641, he met with the success which was anticipated from the high reputation he had previously acquired; and notwithstanding the dangers attendant on the impending political struggle, there can be little doubt that, if he could have refrained from an earnest and ardent inquiry after religious truth, or (having met with it, as he believed, in a different track from that pointed out by the ruling sects of the day); if he could have reconciled his conscience to an outward conformity, he might have remained unmolested in a condition of great credit, usefulness, and prosperity. But though, doubtless, well aware of the troubles which awaited him in that violent and intolerant age, his high sense of duty did not permit him to chain himself down to an implicit adoption of authorized creeds, nor to bury in the silence of his own breast what he conceived to be important, though unpopular and obnoxious, truth.

In addressing his mind to this inquiry, he did not (as is the practice with too many) first examine what the rulers and pharisees believe,— what the fathers, the councils, or the church, have determined,—and then seek to adjust the scripture to a conformity with the comments and traditions of fallible men,—but applied in the first instance to the fountain head, seeking for his religious faith nowhere but in the oracles of God. Nor had he, when he finally embraced Anti-trinitarian sentiments, any familiarity or even acquaintance with the writers on that side, though he afterwards studied the works of the Polish Socinians. There are few who have the impartiality or independence of mind to adhere rigidly to this rule; and yet there can be no question that, if the object be to ascertain not what this or that sect or church believes, but to learn as nearly as possible the true meaning of the sacred scriptures, the most likely way is first to acquire a competent knowledge of the languages in which they are written, and then read and judge for ourselves. If commentaries or any other extraneous sources of information are sought for, they should be such as are chiefly critical; or make it their business to collect the various facts relating to the history of ancient nations, the habits, manners, and general condition of the people, and other circumstances which may serve to illustrate obscure allusions and difficult passages which a mere acquaintance with the language will not alone enable us to explain.

It is not to be expected,—such is the diversity of connexions, previous opinions, and peculiar associations, which variously influence the mind of man,—that this method, even when conscientiously pursued, shall always lead to the same results; and therefore we ought neither to be surprised nor offended to find honest and candid inquirers differing in their conclusions;—least of all, however satisfied of the truth of our own, are we entitled to take it for granted that such inquirers will infallibly adopt them. In Mr. Biddle's case the result was a conviction that the commonly received doctrine of the Trinity has no foundation in scripture. As he was well persuaded that it could not be otherwise than important, that what God had condescended to reveal should be rightly understood by those to whom it was addressed, his newly-acquired views were communicated without reserve, not only to those who might be engaged in similar researches, and might therefore be of service either to confirm or to correct them, but to some whose narrow-minded notions were disturbed or offended by these novelties, as they considered them, and whose intolerant bigotry could not endure that others should seek the way to salvation on a different track from themselves.

Biddle was presently summoned before the magistrates to answer to a charge of heresy. In the statements of his opinions which he offered at this period, there appears a degree of indistinctness and apparent vacillation, ascribable, perhaps, to an unwillingness to encounter the hostility of persecuting bigots, of which, in that intolerant age—when what are now the most obvious, and, indeed, generally acknowledged principles of religious liberty, were very imperfectly understood and even expressly disclaimed by all the contending parties who were then striving for the mastery—one of the lightest consequences would probably be the forfeiture of a lucrative, honourable, and important office, on which not merely his station in life but his subsistence appeared to depend. If it were so, there are few who would be entitled, and of these very few would be inclined, to visit with strong censure the infirmity of human nature, which had not, at first, the fortitude to look consequences like these steadily in the face. On this, his first appearance before the civil magistrate to answer for his religious faith, he appears to have availed himself, as many of those who are called his followers afterwards did with less excuse, of the acknowledged ambiguity of the scholastic term person, to screen himself from the penalties of avowed nonconformity by expressing heterodox opinions in orthodox language.

On the other hand, when it is considered that he was at this time extricating himself by his own unassisted researches from the prejudices of his early education, and gradually acquiring fresh light by his own examination of scripture, it is by no means improbable that his views may as yet have partaken of the indistinctness of his language, and that he had not yet arrived at that clear perception of the truth which he afterwards attained, and boldly professed in the midst of still more formidable hazards. Certain it is, that he persevered for more than a year after this time in that course of free and diligent inquiry, the result of which had already brought him into so much peril. Nor did his experience of former dangers inspire him now with so much worldly prudence as to lead him to withhold his more matured and decided opinions from his friends, to whom he now freely opened his mind on the doctrine of the Trinity.

At this time he drew up and communicated to them a piece, which he intended afterwards to publish, entitled, Twelve Arguments drawn out of Scripture, wherein the commonly received Opinion touching the Deity of the Holy Spirit is clearly and fully refuted. These arguments are reduced to the form of regular syllogisms, each proposition of which is largely illustrated by the author, both from reason and scripture. Thus, He that is distinguished from God, is not God. The Holy Spirit is distinguished from God; ergo, He that speaketh not of himself, is not God. The Holy Spirit speaketh not of himself; ergo, He that is sent by another is not God. The Holy Spirit is sent by another; ergo, &c. It will be perceived that they are all founded on the assumed personality of the Holy Spirit, which Mr. Biddle continued to acknowledge to the last; and hence, though sufficiently well adapted to serve as argumenta ad hominem, when addressed to an opponent who proceeds on this assumption, they will appear less satisfactory to Unitarians of the present day, by whom this notion is almost universally rejected, except in a few cases where the term Holy Spirit is clearly synonymous with God the Father.

By indiscretion or treachery, a copy of this paper fell into the hands of the parliamentary committee, at that time sitting at Gloucester, by whom the author was committed (Dec. 2, 1645) to the common gaol, till the parliament, which was then (as the writer of a short account of his life in the old Socinian tracts expresses it) inflamed with Genevan zeal against such heretics, should take cognizance of the matter. This measure, the professed object of which was merely to secure his person, a purpose which might have been accomplished by much less rigorous means, had this additional hardship, that he was labouring at the time under a dangerous fever. From this confinement, however, a friend at Gloucester had influence enough to procure his enlargement, by giving security for his appearance when it should please the parliament to send for him. During the interval, which lasted about six months, he was visited by the celebrated Archbishop Usher, who happened to pass through Gloucester, and, hearing of his case, endeavoured to convince him of his error, but without success. Indeed, he was not very likely to succeed, if it be true that the argument he chiefly dwelt on was, that, if Mr. Biddle was right, the church for so many centuries had been wrong, and guilty of idolatry. His opponent would, doubtless, reply, Let the church bear its own burden: it is my business to inquire what says the scripture.

Shortly afterwards he was summoned to appear at Westminster, and examined before a Committee of the House of Commons, appointed for that purpose. He now freely confessed that he did not acknowledge the commonly received notion of the Deity of the Holy Spirit, as he was accused; but was ready to hear what could be opposed to him, and, if he could not make out his opinion to be true, honestly to own his error. This, however, was not the style in which any of the religious parties of those times, at least when they felt themselves the strongest, were disposed to deal with those who differed from them. For sixteen months from the time of his first commitment he was detained in a chargeable attendance, without any sentence of condemnation having been passed upon him. At length, being wearied out with tedious and expensive delays, he addressed himself to Sir H. Vane, who was a member of the committee, beseeching him to endeavour either to procure his discharge, or, at all events, to bring the matter to a crisis, by making a report to the House. He then proceeds to deliver his opinion concerning the Holy Spirit, whom he considers to have been the chief of all ministering spirits peculiarly sent out from heaven to minister in their behalf that shall inherit salvation. This opinion he endeavours to confirm by various arguments and references to scripture, most of which appear to us in these days somewhat fanciful, though not ill-adapted to the taste of the times and the party to whom they were addressed. He concludes his appeal in the following impressive and pathetic strain:

For my own particular, after a long, impartial inquiry of the truth in this controversy, and after much and earnest calling upon God to give me the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him, I find myself obliged, both by the principles of reason and scripture, to embrace the opinion I now hold forth, and, as much as in me lyeth, to endeavour that the honour of Almighty God may not be transferred to another, not only to the offence of God himself, but also of his Holy Spirit, who cannot but be grieved to have that ignorantly ascribed to himself which is proper to God that sends him, and which he nowhere I challenges to himself in scripture. What shall befall me in the pursuance of this work, I refer to the disposal of Almighty God, whose glory is dearer to me, not only than liberty, but than my life. It will be your part, honoured Sir, into whose hands God hath put such an opportunity, to examine the business impartially, and to be a helper of the truth, considering that his controversy is of the greatest importance in the world, and that the divine truth suffers not herself to be despised scot-free.

Neither let the meanness of my outward appearance deter you from stirring, since it is the part of a wise man, as in all things so especially in matters of religion, not to regard so much who it is that speaketh, as what it is that is spoken; remembering how our Saviour in the Gospel saith, that God is wont to hide his secrets from the wise and prudent, and reveal them unto children; in which number I willingly reckon myself, being conscious of my own personal weakness, but well assured of the evidence and strength of the scripture to bear me out in this cause.

This appeal was so far effectual, that Sir H. Vane endeavoured to befriend him by bringing his case before the House; but the only consequence was, that he was forthwith committed to the custody of one of the officers of the House, under which restraint, exercised with more or less rigour, he continued for five years. The question in debate was referred to the assembly of divines then sitting at Westminster, before a committee of whom he was frequently summoned, and submitted to them his Twelve Arguments. As might be expected, however, from a discussion conducted under such circumstances, no satisfactory result was obtained. Indeed, it appears that he was met by appeals to the passions rather than to the judgment,—by bitter railing, and threats of a further appeal to the strong arm of the civil power; a species of weapon as he justly observes, which might enable the weakest disputant easily to subvert the strongest controversy. Hence he was at length induced to publish this piece, with a preface bespeaking the reader's serious attention to the arguments laid before him, as to a matter which affected the Divine glory and his own salvation; and requesting him, at any hand, to forbear condemning his opinion as erroneous, till he was able to bring pertinent and solid answers to all his arguments.

The appearance of this tract produced, as may be supposed, a great sensation, and excited a vehement outcry. By order of the House of Commons, it was speedily called in, and ordered to be burnt by the common hangman; a mode of dealing with religious, or indeed with any, controversy, which, while it is suggested by bad and violent passions and still further exasperates them, has an obvious tendency to defeat its own purpose; since it draws the attention of the bystanders and of the public to the subject, and the work itself which is treated with such contumely,—still further excites the general curiosity, and creates a natural suspicion in every candid and thoughtful mind, that those who resort to such violent proceedings seek only to stigmatize and suppress that which they feel themselves unable to refute. Thanks to the operation of the printing-press, it is in vain now to expect that a production which has once made its way before the public can ever be finally put down by such means as these.

Mr. Biddle, however, was not so intimidated by the formidable exercise of human power displayed against him as to be deterred from directing his thoughts to the further promotion of what he conceived to be the noblest and most worthy object on which they could be engaged, namely, a just understanding of the truth of God as revealed in his holy word. The fruit of these studies he soon afterwards published to the world in two tracts, which appeared in 1648; the first entitled A Confession of Faith touching the Holy Trinity, according to the Scriptures; the second, The Testimonies of Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Novatianus, Theophilus, and Origen, who lived in the two first centuries after Christ was born, or thereabouts, as also of Arnobius, Lactantius, Eusebius, Hilary, and Brightman, concerning the One God, and the Persons of the Holy Trinity. These pieces were doubtless suppressed at the time of their first publication, as far as was practicable; but they were reprinted in 1691, and are included in the first volume of the collection commonly called The Old Socinian Tracts. In the preface to his Confession of Faith, the author enlarges with much force of argument on the doctrinal absurdities and practical mischiefs which arise from the belief of three persons in one God; shewing that it introduceth, in fact, three Gods, and thus subverteth the unity of God so frequently inculcated in Scripture. Moreover, it hinders us from praying to God through his son Jesus Christ, as the Gospel directeth us to do; it prohibiteth us to love and honour God as we ought, for the highest love and honour is due to him who is the most high God; but the highest can be given to one person only; and the Son and Spirit being obviously derivative and dependent beings, can be only secondary objects of honour and love. The Confession itself is comprised in six articles, in the first of which he declares his belief in one most high God, the creator of heaven and earth, the father of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Son he considers as the second cause of all things pertaining to our salvation, and consequently as the intermediate object of our faith and worship, to whom also he ascribes the title of God, but in an inferior and subordinate sense. The last article relates to the Holy Spirit, and is as follows:—I believe that there is one principal minister of God and Christ, peculiarly sent from heaven to sanctify the church, who by eminence and intimacy with God is singled out of the number of the other heavenly ministers or angels, and comprised in the Holy Trinity, being the third person thereof; and that this minister of God and Christ is the Holy Spirit. The subjoined scriptural illustrations of these articles contain much acute and ingenious criticism on the texts which have been chiefly insisted on, on both sides of this controversy; but his concessions of the title God, as applied to Christ, and of the distinct personality of the Holy Spirit, involve his argument in difficulties and obscurities, of which an expert opponent would not fail to take great advantage. The Testimonies, &c., among other decisive proofs that the opinions of these early fathers were very remote indeed from what has passed for orthodoxy in later times, contain several of the remarkable passages which have since been rendered so familiar by Dr. Priestley's History of the Corruptions of Christianity, and the controversy to which it gave rise.

No one acquainted with the temper of those times will imagine that such publications as these could come abroad without exciting the most vehement indignation againt their author, and calling down upon his head a still heavier storm than any which he had hitherto experienced. It was manifested, as usual, by most arbitrary exertions of that power which our Lord utterly disclaimed as a supporter for his church. On this occasion it was that the Assembly of Divines, chiefly Presbyterians, solicited from the Parliament the infamous ordinance against heresy and blasphemy. By this, among other flagrant outrages, it was enacted that any one who should, by preaching, printing, or writing, controvert the Deity of the Son or of the Holy Spirit, or the equality of Christ with the Father, or the distinction of two natures, or the sinless perfection of his humanity, should be declared a felon. It doomed them, if convicted on confession or on the oaths of two witnesses, before two justices, to imprisonment, without bail or mainprize, until the next gaol delivery, when the witnesses were bound to give evidence, and the party were to be indicted for feloniously publishing and maintaining such error. It then enacted, that in case the indictment should be found, and the party on trial should not abjure the said error, and maintenance and defence of the same, he or they should suffer the pains of death, as in case of felony, without benefit of clergy.

When such an instrument as this was placed in the hands of his enemies, it might seem that Biddle's fate was sealed; and it would most probably have been so, if he and such as he had been the only parties endangered by it. But it happily contained other clauses, denouncing severe penalties, though not proceeding to the same extremity, against many who, in these days of civil strife, were too powerful and formidable to be thus dealt with. Among others, not a few in the army, both officers and soldiers, held opinions which were branded as heretical by this iniquitous statute; and hence, when the violently intolerant party whose councils had hitherto been predominant were shortly afterwards displaced by military force, their persecuting law was not enforced, and for several years lay nearly unregarded. After the death of the king, chiefly through the representations of Cromwell, a milder policy was adopted in respect of religious dissentients, by which Mr. Biddle in some measure benefited. He was still in custody under his original commitment by the House of Commons; but at this time he had somewhat more liberty allowed him by his keeper, and was even permitted, on security being given for his appearance, to go into Staffordshire, where he lived for some time in the house of a gentleman, who not only entertained him with kindness, but made him his chaplain, and procured him an appointment to preach at a neighbouring church. At his death he left him a legacy, which proved a seasonable supply to him, as he had by this time exhausted whatever funds he had accumulated at Gloucester in the expenses which his long confinement and other persecutions had occasioned. The name of this generous friend has not been preserved, nor does it appear for what length of time Mr. Biddle's respite continued. But it was probably not long; for we find that notice of his situation having been given to Bradshaw, the President of the Council of State, he was, by his direction, recalled, and placed in more strict and rigorous confinement.

At length, in 1651, the Parliament having passed a general act of oblivion, this virtuous sufferer for conscience' sake was restored to full liberty, which he improved without delay, with a few friends whom his writings and the harsh usage he had received had procured for him in London. These he formed into a small religious society, who met in private every Lord's day for worship and the study of the scriptures. Their association was formed on the principle of the strict and absolute unity of the Divine nature, acknowledging the Father only as the proper object of Christian worship; the Saviour Christ as a man approved of God and sent by him to save mankind from their sins, and recognised to be the Son of God with power by his resurrection from the dead; and the Holy Ghost, conformably to the views maintained in Mr. Biddle's Twelve Arguments, to be a distinct intelligent spirit, of high dignity and excellence, but not God, nor in any sense the object of worship. It is singular that, though we have good reason to believe that in this small community good seed was sown which did not altogether perish, and in particular that among its members were some of the authors of that remarkable collection of tracts already mentioned, which appeared in this country towards the close of the seventeenth century, and strongly attracted the attention of the religious world at that period to the Unitarian controversy, very few of the names of Mr. Biddle's immediate followers and disciples have been recorded.

For about three years Mr. Biddle and his friends appear to have enjoyed the liberty of meeting for worship and mutual improvement in humble obscurity, but unmolested. During this period his little congregation received a visit from Dr. Gunning, afterwards Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, and Bishop of Ely. He came attended by some learned friends, not, however, as presently appeared, for the purpose of witnessing, still less of joining in their worship, but to interrupt, oppose, and contradict. If Mr. Biddle had returned the compliment, the constable would have been sent for to take him into custody as a disturber of the public peace, and, perhaps, not undeservedly. But Gunning seems to have delighted in this kind of skirmishes, and was in the habit, as his biographer tells us, of looking out all sorts of sectaries, to dispute with them openly in their own congregations. On this occasion he immediately commenced a formal disputation, first, on the Deity of the Holy Spirit; and afterwards on the supreme Deity of Christ. Mr. Biddle was taken at a disadvantage, and by surprise, and, therefore, if he had been worsted in a contest undertaken upon such unfair and unequal terms, it ought not to have been considered, nor would it by any impartial person, as a symptom of the weakness of his cause. The discussion was conducted, as was customary in those days, according to the technical forms of the scholastic method of disputation, in which it is probable that the habits of our author's former life, as a student and tutor at the University, had rendered him sufficiently well skilled. At all events, he acquitted himself with such ability in this unlooked — for contest, as to defeat the design of his antagonist, and even to call forth a complimentary acknowledgment of his talent and skill as a disputant. Thus it happened that this attack, which was intended to destroy his credit with and influence over his adherents, had the contrary effect, and served only to shew more clearly how deeply he had studied the question, and made himself master of the argument before he ventured on the bold and decisive step of avowing an unpopular doctrine, which rendered him obnoxious at once to the multitude and the civil power, and placed him in collision with the most learned men and the subtlest disputants of his time.

It may, however, be made a question how far such public contests, whether conducted in the formal method of syllogistic warfare, or in the more popular style of personal conference occasionally practised in our own times, are well fitted to promote either the cause of truth or the love of it. The point determined by the dispute, if any, is not which party is in the right, but which is the ablest disputant, the acutest reasoner, or most eloquent speaker; and the object will commonly be, not to search candidly for the truth, and to embrace it wherever it is to be found, but to prove the opponent to be in the wrong, to lay hold of and magnify those flaws and oversights in argument of which he who has the better cause may often be guilty. A habit of disputing, not for truth but for victory, is in this manner too apt to be generated. It may be added, that success in contests of this kind commonly depends not so much on general talent, or even on a correct knowledge of the points in question, as on other qualifications of a merely personal nature;—on a facility in public speaking, or on a peculiar readiness and self-possession, with an acuteness in discerning and exposing the weak parts of an opponent's case, which may or may not be connected with the profession of the truth, or with a disposition to seek after and embrace it. We have no further record of the particulars of this public contest, or of its result; but there is no reason to think that it was any exception to the general rule in such cases, where the opposite parties commonly leave the scene of contention with their views unchanged, except that the line of separation is made more distinct, more broad and impassable than before, and each disputant more thoroughly fixed and settled in his original opinion.

About this time Mr. Biddle published several small pieces, chiefly translations from the writings of the Polish Unitarians; among the rest, A brief Inquiry, touching a better Way than is commonly made use of to refute Papists, and to reduce Protestants to a certainty and unity in Religion, The immediate object of the writer (Joachim Stegman) is to point out the advantage which the advocates of Popery derive from certain opinions maintained by some Protestants, particularly on the condition of the soul in a supposed intermediate state. His remarks on this subject are judicious and forcible; but the work derives its principal interest from the sound views it exhibits of the proper method of seeking for religious truth, namely, to discard all human authority, and to stick to the scripture only, as explained and understood by right reason, without having any regard to tradition, or the authority of fathers, councils, &c. On this subject the following remarks of the translator are well deserving of attention.

Speaking of those who would be displeased with the work, because reason is therein much cried up, he says,

My desire therefore is, that such persons would but consider what the holy scripture itself saith on this behalf;—how Paul (Rom. XII. 1) calleth the service which Christians are to exhibit unto God a rational or reasonable service. And Peter (1 Ep. III. 15) saith, Be ready always to make an apology unto every man that asketh you a reason concerning the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear. Which passage clearly intimateth, that as there is no incongruity for others to require a reason of our hope in Christ, so we Christians are, above all other professors whatsoever, obliged to be very rational; —for to make an apology or defence in the behalf of so abstruse and sublime a doctrine as ours is, requireth a more than ordinary improvement of reason.

This being so, it may seem strange why so great a number even of Protestant ministers should make reason a common theme to disclaim against, giving to it (without warrant of scripture) the name of corrupt reason and carnal reason, and other the like eulogies. But the truth is, they themselves hold many absurd, unreasonable opinions; and so know right well, that if men once begin to make use of their reason, and bring the doctrines that are commonly taught to the touchstone of the scripture, explained and managed in a rational way, their tenets and reputation with the people will soon be laid in the dust. Let such ministers henceforward either leave off clamouring against reason, or no more open their mouths against Papists, and their opinion about transubstantiation; for whosoever shall sift the controversy between Papists and Protestants concerning it, shall find, that the principal, if not only, ground why we reject it, is because it is repugnant to reason. But if transubstantiation is to be disclaimed because contrary to reason, why shall not all other unreasonable doctrines upon the same ground be exploded, especially seeing there is scarce any one of them that can plead so plausible a colour of scripture for itself as that can?

Another piece translated by Mr. Biddle was Przipcovius's Life of F. Socinus, with the preliminary discourse prefixed by that writer to the works of Socinus. His views in this publication, says Dr. Toulmin, appear to have been truly laudable and liberal; namely, to do justice to a character which had been much aspersed, and to hold up to contemplation a great example, at the same time that he enters a caveat against an implicit deference to the judgment of his hero.

At this period our author also published two remarkable tracts in the catechetical form, explanatory of his peculiar views of Christian doctrine; one entitled A Scripture Catechism, the other A Brief Scripture Catechism for Children; in which the apparently unexceptionable plan is pursued, of leaving the scripture to speak for itself, by constructing the questions in such a form that the answers may be given in the unaltered words of holy writ. He describes his Scripture Catechism as composed for their sakes that would fain be mere Christians, and not of this or that sect; inasmuch as all the sects of Christians, by what name soever distinguished, have more or less departed from the simplicity and truth of the scripture. I have called this an apparently unexceptionable method; but it may, perhaps, be doubted, whether it is really entitled to all the praise of impartiality and fairness which seems at first sight to belong to it. It is granted that we have good reason to consider it as no small recommendation of our religious opinions, that they admit of being expressed in the genuine words of scripture, without requiring the introduction of new and strange terms and phrases unknown to the sacred writers. But it may be alleged, that the difficulty which is sometimes felt in dispensing with such phrases, is to a certain degree incidental, arising from the change of language, and from the circumstance that the books of the New Testament were, for the most part, written with an immediate view to local and temporary purposes; so that it is hardly to be expected that they should contain a regular statement of doctrines which admits of being construed with minute verbal accuracy, like the clauses of an act of parliament, or the formal propositions of a systematic treatise. It must be remembered, too, that all Protestant sects profess at least to found their peculiar doctrines upon scripture; and there can be little doubt that, by a dexterous adaptation of the questions to the phraseology of detached passages selected from different places and separated from their connexion, catechisms might be constructed upon this plan which should appear to give the sanction of holy writ to the most discordant opinions. The method, if it be adopted at all, requires to be pursued with caution, from its tendency to withdraw the attention from the general scope and tenor of the sacred writings, and direct it upon particular words and phrases; in not a few instances, upon the words, not of the author himself, but of his uninspired translator, who may not always have fairly represented the meaning of the original; being, perhaps, unconsciously biassed so as to give a turn to the passage favourable to his own previously formed opinions. It may be added, that this mode of citing texts, unless carefully guarded, is in danger of encouraging the baneful practice of adducing passages of scripture as though they were a collection of detached aphorisms, and not portions of a continued discourse, to be interpreted by reference to the context and the obvious intention and purpose of the writer. The remark of some one, that at this rate we might prove from scripture the proposition, there is no God, is scarcely an exaggeration of the extent to which this abuse has sometimes been carried, or of the mischievous absurdities which have in this manner sought to derive the shadow of support from the highest authority.

The appearance of these tracts was enough to alarm the bigoted advocates of prevailing doctrines, who presently proceeded to adopt the usual arbitrary and oppressive mode of dealing with an opponent stigmatized with the odious and unpopular name of heretic. A series of propositions was selected and condemned by a vote of the House of Commons, and the book itself ordered, as usual, to be burnt by the common hangman. Mr. Biddle was summoned to the bar of the House, and interrogated whether he was the author of the obnoxious treatise. Instead of committing himself by an avowal, he answered by asking, in his turn, whether it seemed reasonable that one brought before a judgment-seat as a criminal should acuse himself? This prudent reserve, however, was of no avail to protect him when the judges had already condemned him unheard. He was forthwith committed close prisoner to the Gate-house; debarred the use of pen, ink, and paper, and denied the access of any visitant. At the same time his book encountered two opponents, who attacked it with more suitable and appropriate weapons. Mr. N. Estwick, some time fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge, published an examination and confutation of Mr. Biddle's Confession of Faith, touching the Holy Trinity; and the celebrated Dr. Owen, then in the zenith of his fame and the brightest ornament of the University of Oxford under the Commonwealth, at the request of the Council of State, drew up and published his Vindiciae Evangelicae, or the Mystery of the Gospel vindicated, and Socinianism examined in the Consideration and Confutation of a Catechism, called a Scripture Catechism by J. Biddle.

The oppressive treatment to which our intrepid confessor was thus subjected seems to have had no effect on his subsequent conduct. Undismayed by the fear of man, he continued to assert the rights of conscience; and when set at liberty from his rigorous confinement, instead of withdrawing into tranquil obscurity, contented to enjoy his opinions in silence, he resumed his former labours for the promotion of what appeared to him to be the truth as it is in Jesus. It was not long, therefore, before he was again brought under the cognizance of the civil power. There seems little reason to doubt that Mr. Biddle's personal exertions and publications, aided as they doubtless were to a very considerable extent by the notoriety and public sympathy which he derived from these repeated persecutions, had excited a spirit of inquiry, and even a disposition to embrace his doctrines in numbers sufficient to rouse the alarm both of the sincere bigot, who honestly believed that the profession of the right faith (meaning his own faith) was essential to salvation, and of others, who, with more unworthy motives, were anxious to maintain their own personal influence, and the political predominance of the religious party to which they belonged. To the former class probably must be referred a Mr. Griffin, the minister of a Baptist congregation in the city, many of whose hearers had begun to shew a leaning to Unitarian opinions; he was induced, in consequence, to challenge Mr. Biddle to a public disputation on the subject in his own meeting-house. With considerable hesitation and reluctance, probably arising from an unwillingness to court the hostile notice of the temporal power, though he never allowed such considerations to deter him from the path of indispensable and acknowledged duty, Mr. Biddle at length complied, and met his antagonist, whom he found surrounded by a numerous auditory, including some of his own most bitter and vehement adversaries. Griffin began by asking, if any man there did deny that Christ was God most high? on which Mr. Biddle replied, with sincerity and firmness, I do deny it. The disputation then proceeded by Griffin endeavouring at large to establish the affirmative, which he is said to have done in such a manner as to shew himself no fit opponent for Mr. Biddle, who it was agreed should take his turn to bring forward the opposite arguments on a future day, to which the debate was adjourned. But in the mean time, a power of a different kind took up the matter. Information had been laid by some of the parties present at the first day's debate of Mr. Biddle's open avowal of his sentiments; the consequence of which was, that he was speedily committed, and at the next session brought to trial for his life. He was arraigned on the iniquitous ordinance before-mentioned against heresy and blasphemy; which after having for some years lain almost dormant, was revived on this occasion as the instrument of oppression against the same individual whose earlier exertions in behalf of free inquiry after religious truth had in the first instance suggested it. The mode of procedure was in many respects worthy of the unchristian spirit of the law (if it deserves that name) on which it was founded. When he prayed that counsel might be allowed him to plead the illegality of the indictment, it was denied him by the judges, and the sentence of a mute threatened. Upon this he gave into court his exceptions engrossed on parchment, and with much struggling had counsel allowed him; but his trial was deferred till the next day.

His life now appeared to be in imminent hazard, for he was in the hands of those who had no want of disposition to exert to its full extent the power with which this persecuting ordinance invested them. Here, however, the policy of the Protector Cromwell happily led him to interfere on his behalf, and prevent matters from being carried to this extremity. The temper of the times considered, Cromwell had imbibed more just ideas of religious liberty; and in many instances shewed himself not indisposed to act upon them, where political interests and the establishment of his own precarious ascendancy did not appear to demand a different course. It is true he frequently adopted very harsh and arbitrary measures, both against the Episcopalians and the Catholics; but he seems to have been influenced herein, not by religious bigotry, but by the persuasion, doubtless not ill-founded, that these parties were almost unanimously hostile to his government. On the present occasion, it was contrary to his policy to strengthen the hands of the Presbyterian party, who, in that age, were the most active abettors of rigorous proceedings against those whom they deemed heretics. All that were for liberty, especially many congregations of Baptists, petitioned for Biddle's discharge, and earnestly protested against the revival of this tyrannical ordinance, by which their own liberties would be endangered, and the leading articles of the instrument, on which the Protector's government was founded, infringed. Of these articles one of the most remarkable was as follows:— Such as profess faith in God by Jesus Christ (though differing in judgment from the doctrine, worship, or discipline publicly held forth) shall not be restrained from, but protected in the profession of their faith and exercise of their religion. And again, all statutes, ordinances, &c., to the contrary of the aforesaid liberty, shall be esteemed null and void.

Notwithstanding this, it would not have been prudent in Cromwell to set Mr. Biddle completely at liberty; by which step not only the Presbyterians, but the greater part of those of all denominations who were earnestly attached to what were called orthodox views in religion, would have been deeply offended. He, therefore, detained him in prison, and, after some time, wearied out with the solicitations of the contending parties, sent him into banishment in the Scilly Islands, October 5, 1655,

In this seclusion he was, it is true, debarred from most of his customary occupations, and particularly from that to which his life had been mainly devoted, namely, that of asserting and promoting the diffusion of what he regarded as the pure truth of the Gospel; but he was at the same time withdrawn from the pursuit of his deadly enemies, and, for nearly three years, employed his solitary leisure without interruption in biblical studies, Here, his biographer informs us,

Short Account of the Life of Biddle, p. 8, Socinian Tracts. vol. i

was born at Stamford, in Lincolnshire, in the year 1663. His parents, though they statedly attended the worship of the established church, were friendly to the principles of the Nonconformists; and accordingly, even at that period, when such a destination held out no flattering prospect, and might lead to bonds and imprisonment, they did not hesitate to devote their son to the Christian ministry in that connexion. For this purpose, after the usual preparatory course of grammar learning, he was sent, in 1678, to an academical institution conducted by a Mr. Shuttleworth, at Sulby, in Northamptonshire. For a short time he was admitted at Emanuel College, Cambridge, and was afterwards transferred to the academy of Mr. Doolittle, in the neighbourhood of London. Here he had greater advantages in the access to books, &c.; but there is reason to think that he was more indebted to his own personal exertions and private studies than to the instructions he received. His tutors appear to have been worthy and conscientious, but narrow-minded men, of no superior talent or compass of thought. He seems, however, to have speedily acquired reputation as a young man of acquirement and promise; for, in 1683, when only twenty years of age, he became chaplain to the Countess of Donegal, who then resided in London, and the following year went over with her family to Belfast in Ireland, where she was shortly afterwards married to Sir W. Franklin. Here he continued for some years in his capacity of chaplain, with a liberal salary, and was treated with great respect and distinction. Sir W. Franklin, who had a large property in the west of England, offered to present him to a considerable living in that part of the country; but he declined it, not in consequence of any scruples on the doctrine of the Trinity, respecting which no difficulties had as yet arisen in his mind, but from a dissatisfaction with the prescribed terms of ministerial conformity. That he was not, however, at this time a rigid Nonconformist, appears from his not only attending regularly the ordinary services of the church, but frequently officiating for the neighbouring clergymen, having a license for so doing from the bishop of the diocese, facultatis exercendoe gratui. The disturbances which took place in the north of Ireland in consequence of the landing of James II. in that country, occasioned the breaking up of the Countess of Donegal's establishment, and Emlyn retired to England; previously to which, however, he received an overture through Mr. Boyse, one of the ministers of the Presbyterian congregation in Wood-street, Dublin, to become his colleague as successor to Mr. (afterwards Dr.) Daniel Williams, who had been driven from his charge by the violent and tyrannical proceedings of the popish administration of the time. But he declined the proposal for the present. Having no immediate engagement in England, he accepted an invitation from Sir Robert Rich, one of the Lords of the Admiralty, to his seat near Beccles in Suffolk, and was induced by him to officiate as minister to a small dissenting congregation at Lowestoff, in that county. Here he remained about a year and a half, though without formally undertaking the pastoral charge. During his residence at Lowestoff he maintained a friendly intercourse with the clergyman of the place, accompanying him in making collections for the public charities, and occasionally attending with part of his congregation upon his public services. This was conformable, as we have seen, to his practice while in Ireland, and was by no means inconsistent with his principles; for he was not as yet a dissenter from the doctrines of the church, and he had too much liberality to make the minor matters of difference in discipline and ceremonial an insuperable bar to communion.

At this period, however, he also formed an intimate acquaintance with Mr. W. Manning, a worthy dissenting minister at Peasenhall, in his neighbourhood. Their congenial habits and pursuits occasioned frequent meetings, and they engaged together in theological inquiries, mutually communicating to each other their respective sentiments and conclusions; in which, as it happened, they were both led to deviate widely from the opinions then generally prevalent. The doctrine of the Trinity in particular they agreed, first in doubting, and at length in rejecting altogether. Mr. Manning embraced the Socinian view, but could not prevail on his friend to concur with him, as he could not satisfy himself with the Socinian interpretation of the texts usually brought to prove the preexist-ence of our Saviour as the great Spirit or Logos by whose instrumentality God created the material world. He therefore espoused what has since been called the High Arian hypothesis, in which he continued during the rest of his life. In these sentiments he agreed nearly with Whiston, Clarke, Peirce, and many other eminent divines of that and the immediately succeeding age, whose celebrity for a long period gave the Arian scheme the preference over that of Socinus.

When James II. was driven back to France, and affairs in Ireland assumed a more peaceable and settled appearance, Mr. Emlyn was induced to accept a second overture to become joint pastor with Mr. Joseph Boyse of the Presbyterian congregation in

the name of James Peirce will ever occupy a conspicuous place in the annals of religious liberty. It was not his lot, like the worthies we have already commemorated, to contend against the magistrate and the judge, wielding the terrors of the law in support of an established faith. The parties with whom he had to deal were happily divested of these formidable attributes, and unable to visit their opponents with fine and imprisonment; but they gave ample proof that the spirit was not wanting; and if they did not assume the character of persecutors in the worst sense, it was from a deficiency of power rather than of inclination. Their proceedings, we fear, shewed but too plainly, that the old leaven was far from being as completely worn out as might have been supposed: there is, however, every reason to think, that the controversy excited on the occasion, notwithstanding the heat and violence with which it was conducted, was mainly instrumental in opening the eyes of great numbers to more just and liberal views, both of religious truth, and of the proper mode of conducting religious inquiries. In this way the wrath of man is made to work out the righteousness of God, and his vehement passions and contentions with his brethren are over-ruled and directed to better purposes than were intended; so that what good men deplored at the time as a miserable and mortifying display of unholy zeal and unchristian principles and feelings, became ultimately the means not only of promoting the further diffusion of the doctrines everywhere spoken against, but of checking the growth of priestly domination and of spiritual pride, lording it over the consciences of men, which are so inconsistent with the true spirit of the gospel of peace.

Mr. Peirce was the son of respectable parents in good circumstances, and was born in London, in the year 1673. Having the misfortune to lose his parents early in life, he was placed under the care of Mr. Matthew Mead, an eminent Nonconformist minister at Stepney, and father of the celebrated Dr. Mead. After a suitable course of preparatory instruction, partly in the house of his guardian and partly at various grammar schools, he was sent, according to a practice not uncommon among the English dissenters of that period, to pursue his theological studies in Holland, first at the University of Utrecht, and afterwards at the sister seminary of Leyden. At both these celebrated seats of learning the principal chairs were at that time occupied by a constellation of eminent men, whose fame drew to them a concourse of students from all the Protestant countries of Europe. Among these the names of Witsius, Graevius, Burmann, Leusden, Gronovius, Spanheim, &c., are still remembered with respect in the republic of letters.

Having passed several years in each of these universities, Mr. Peirce returned to England, and shortly afterwards spent some time at Oxford, not however as a member of the university, but in private lodgings, for the purpose of resorting to the Bodleian library. After preaching occasionally for some time to various congregations of dissenters in and near London, chiefly among the Presbyterians, but without mixing himself up with the controversies at that period agitated with so much vehemence between the Presbyterians and Independents, he settled as minister to a congregation at Cambridge. How long he continued in this situation we have no means of ascertaining; but it appears that he had the opportunity of cultivating the acquaintance of several men of talent and eminence in the university: among the rest the celebrated Whiston, From hence we may safely conclude, that he had already acquired a fair reputation for ability and attainments; for a dissenting minister immediately under the shade of one of our great seats of learning, miscalled national, which are reserved for the exclusive benefit of the established church, must obviously have many prejudices to encounter and remove before he can obtain admittance on a footing of equality and intimacy among those who, having enjoyed privileges from which others are debarred, are often disposed, for that very reason, to look down on the scholarship which has not been acquired among themselves,

From Cambridge he removed to Newbury, in Berkshire, where he seems to have been very eligibly situated with an attached and encouraging congregation. During his residence here, he distinguished himself by various publications on the controversy between the church and the dissenters. His first appearance on this arena was in reply to a Dr. Wells, a clergyman in Leicestershire, who had published A Letter to Mr. Donley, a dissenting minister, containing many unfounded statements and gross misrepresentations of the principles and character of the dissenters. This pamphlet being circulated with great activity, Mr. Peirce, in 1707, published A Eight Letters to Dr. Wells, in which he convicted him, not only of various mistakes, but of gross and unjust calumnies. But his most remarkable and valuable work, in connexion with this controversy, was occasioned by the appearance of a Latin treatise by Dr. Nichols, Foreign Secretary to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, and more particularly submitted to the judgment of divines in the foreign Protestant churches. As this work, from the quarter in which it originated, and the authority it appeared to assert, was likely to have an injurious effect in diffusing erroneous impressions of the character, doctrines, and discipline of the English dissenters among their foreign brethren, it was thought most desirable that a complete and full reply should be given by some one who was competent to appear to advantage in the same field. With this view Mr. Peirce, as the most suitable man for the task, was earnestly solicited to undertake it; and, after some hesitation, he consented, and prepared a well-written volume, entitled Vindiciae Fratrum Dissentientium in Anglia, adversus V. C. Gulielmi Nicholsii, S. T. P., Defensionem Ecclesiae Anglicanae, 1710. To this work Dr. Nichols attempted no reply, and Mr. Peirce thought the controversy at an end, till, some years afterwards, another clergyman, after the death of Dr. Nichols, published an English translation of his treatise, with a preface, recommending it to the particular attention of the dissenters, as a complete and unanswerable refutation of their principles, without a hint at any reply to it having ever appeared.

It is possible enough that this proceeding arose not so much from any wilful unfairness as from pure ignorance; for the Vindiciae having been chiefly intended for foreign readers, may probably have had only a limited circulation at home; and persons of all parties are too apt, in most cases, to content themselves with the writers on their own side of the question. Independently of other more unworthy motives, self-love and indolence often lead to this one-sided study of an important subject. It is much easier to confine ourselves to those arguments which we are already disposed to think conclusive, and to go along with the stream, than to undertake the labour of examination and patient inquiry; not to add, that it is much more agreeable to find or believe ourselves in the right, than to be forced to acknowledge that we had been in the wrong. It is not much to be wondered at, therefore, that so few, comparatively speaking, run the risk of becoming exposed to this painful necessity. It is not at all unlikely that this clergyman was one of those who never read dissenting divinity, and therefore had no suspicion that the book which he held forth as conclusive had already been fully answered. Mr. Peirce, finding that this work was much recommended to English readers, yielded to the solicitations of his friends, and published, in 1717, a translation of his former work, entitled A Vindication of the Dissenters, in answer to Dr. W. Nichols's Defence of the Doctrine and Discipline of the Church of England: in three parts. The first part contains the history of Non-conformity; the second treats of the doctrine of the Church of England; and the third contains all the heads relating to discipline and worship. The work is dedicated to the ministers of the Church of Scotland, which he seems to hold up as a model of purity, both in doctrine and discipline; and, in fact, he takes little notice of the main point, which would now be considered as lying at the root of the question between the opponents and the advocates of an establishment as such; namely, the claim of the church to decree rites and ceremonies, and to exercise authority in matters of faith. This is the more remarkable, when we observe the effect of the treatment he afterwards received, to open his eyes to the injustice of all attempts to impose creeds of human composition; a leading principle of religious liberty, with which the name of Peirce has since become intimately connected in the history of Protestant dissent. In some places he even makes it an objection to Dr. N., that he represents his church as having departed from the standards of Calvinistic orthodoxy.

Nevertheless, even during his residence at Newbury, it would seem, from Mr. Peirce's own account, that in respect of the doctrine of the Trinity, he had himself already deviated considerably from these standards. He had been brought up, he tells us, in a scheme which he was unable afterwards to distinguish from Sabellianism, and a set of unscriptural expressions had been inculcated on him from his youth, which he had long a great veneration for, and which continued to influence him so much as to inspire him with a strong disinclination to examine more particularly into this subject, even when he began to suspect a deficiency of argument in its favour from Scripture. In his preaching, however, he tells us, that he was at all times careful to confine himself as much as possible to scriptural forms of expression. The doctrine itself he was accustomed to consider as a mystery, which it was to little purpose to search into. Still he was surprised to observe, that the early fathers, previous to the council of Nice, never came up to the notions which have since become prevalent; and, on the other hand, that the expressions used by those who have had the highest reputation for orthodoxy appeared to him downright tritheism.

The effect of these things on his mind for some time, was to produce a repugnance to the subject altogether; and he never voluntarily turned his thoughts to it. He was in this state of mind when the outcry began to be raised about his former friend Mr. Whiston, on account of his having embraced Arian sentiments. He wrote him a friendly expostulation

Mr. Whiston has inserted the letter here referred to, in his own memoirs; and it must be confessed that it contains some strong expressions which may be thought to indicate a much nearer approach to high Trinitarian sentiments than the report given by the author himself of his views at this period, from which the preceding statement has been derived, would lead us to expect. But it must be remembered, that in the one case he was naturally desirous to make the most, in the other the least, of such orthodoxy as he then possessed. Nor let it be supposed that this apparent discrepancy implies any wilful insincerity in either case. It is by no means an easy matter for a man to give a precise and accurate account, after the lapse of years, of the opinions he formerly entertained on any controverted question; especially when his views with respect to it have been undergoing a gradual, and sometimes, perhaps even to himself, an imperceptible, change. Still more is this likely to be the case when the question is one which is disputed with heat and vehemence, and excites the passions of contending parties. Those who are conscious of a tendency towards unpopular opinions, if they are timid and irresolute, will be apt to avoid as much as possible all reference to it; when obliged to advert to it, they will labour to be as orthodox as they can, and will shelter themselves in obscure and ambiguous forms of expression. Thus they are often prevented from perceiving how far they have deviated from received standards, till some accidental circumstance suddenly reveals to them the important but hitherto unsuspected transition which they have undergone.

the name of Hallet, which frequently occurs in the preceding narrative, occupied a distinguished place for three generations in the history of Protestant dissent at Exeter. The first of the series was one of the venerable Two Thousand, ejected from Chesleborough, in Somersetshire. In 1672 he settled at Exeter, where he remained till his death in 1688, exercising his ministry as a faithful, affectionate pastor, under the dangers and trials to which Nonconformist ministers in those troubled times were continually exposed. He is said to have been a diligent student, and a fervent, clear, and impressive preacher. His immediate successor was Mr. G. Trosse, with whom his son, Joseph Hallet, jun., was associated as colleague in 1690. In 1710, this gentleman opened an academy for the education of candidates for the Christian ministry, which continued for several years. In the list of students at this institution we find the names of several who rose to eminence in the succeeding age;—among the rest, Joseph Hallet the third, and the celebrated Dr. James Foster. It seems to have been looked upon with great jealousy by the opponents of the new notions, as a hotbed of heresy; and the liberal manner, as we should consider it, in which Mr. Hallet appears to have permitted and even encouraged his pupils to study both sides of disputed questions, is frequently mentioned in terms of strong censure in the pamphlets published by the ultra-orthodox in the Exeter controversy. It is by no means improbable that some of them both went further than their tutor in the adoption of heterodox sentiments, and were considerably less discreet in divulging them.

Mr. Hallet, after his ejectment, continued joint pastor with Mr. Peirce of the seceding congregation, till his death in 1722, when he was succeeded by his son, already mentioned, the best known and most eminent of the three. He was born in 1692. For a short time he was associated with his father in the conduct of the academy in which he received his education, but not as a regular tutor. At this time he appears first to have corresponded with the celebrated Whiston; and it gives a singular image of the jealous and inquisitorial spirit with which the self-styled champions of orthodoxy were accustomed to keep watch on those whom they suspected of prying into forbidden mysteries, when we learn that Mr. Hallet thought it necessary to request his correspondent not to address his letter directly to himself, since, if it should be known that he maintained a correspondence with such a noted heresiarch, it would be utter ruin to his prospects. Mr. Joseph Hallet was the author of various pieces connected with the leading controversy of the day, so prolific in the productions of the busy pens of many active polemics; but he is best known by a valuable work entitled, A free and impartial Study of the Scriptures recommended; being notes on some peculiar texts, with discourses and observations on various subjects. The first volume of this work was published in 1729, and was followed by two others in 1732 and 1734. He also distinguished himself in the controversy which was actively maintained at that period by several eminent advocates of revelation, particularly among the Dissenters, with Morgan, Collins, Tindal, and other deistical writers. He has been already mentioned as having continued and completed the imperfect work of Mr. Peirce on the Epistle to the Hebrews. To this work he has prefixed an elaborate dissertation on the disputed questions as to the authorship of this Epistle, and the language in which it was written; adopting the conjecture that it was originally written by St. Paul, in the Hebrew or rather Syro-Chaldaic tongue, spoken by the Jews of Palestine, but that it was afterwards translated into Greek by St. Luke.

Mr. Hallet was a man of high accomplishment as a scholar, particularly in the Hebrew and other oriental tongues; and it has been remarked, that there is scarcely one of the conjectural emendations of the Hebrew text of the Old Testament which he has suggested in his discourses, that has not been since countenanced by respectable evidence in the extensive researches of Kennicott. As a minister, he is said to have discharged the duties of his office with exemplary diligence and fidelity; and in private life to have secured the esteem of all who knew him, by the mildness and gentleness of his temper, and his truly Christian behaviour. He died in 1744.

Is one of the distinguished names in which the Unitarians, with good reason, are most accustomed to glory. He is, indeed, one of those worthies whom the universal church are wont to claim as their own; though too large a portion of them, in so doing, are obliged to sacrifice their consistency, and to lay aside for the occasion their usual narrow principles of exclusion. His accurate and extensive learning,—his thorough acquaintance with Christian antiquity,—his unwearied and patient industry,—the freedom from prejudice and partiality in stating his argument, which has obtained him the epithet of the Candid Lardner, were qualities in which he has seldom, if ever, been excelled: and he brought these endowments, more rare than brilliant, to the most valuable and important service in which they could be engaged, in placing the external or historical evidence of Christianity, in so far as it depends on the proof of the authenticity of the Christian scriptures, on a clearer and more satisfactory footing than it had ever before assumed.

Nathaniel Lardner was born at Hawkhurst, a considerable village in the county of Kent, June 6, 1684. His father, Mr. Richard Lardner, was a respectable minister, afterwards settled at Deal, in that county. Where he received the earlier part of his education cannot now be ascertained; but he was transferred at an early age to an academy in London, then conducted by Dr. Joshua Oldfield. Here, however, he seems to have remained but a short time; for in 1699, when under sixteen, he was sent to pursue his theological studies at Utrecht; in which university, then enjoying a high celebrity, many of the most distinguished English Nonconformist divines of that period received either the whole or a considerable part of their academical education.

In his funeral sermon for Dr. Hunt, (x. 11,) our author speaks of five or six of the English students, one of whom was Hunt, and perhaps another the preacher himself, who in January, 1700, or thereabout, had the curiosity to attend the lectures of a celebrated Rabbi on Jewish learning. After a time, he adds, all except these two, disheartened by the difficulty of the study, gave out. If we are right in this conjecture as to the other student, it is a remarkable indication of proficiency and aptitude for study, that he should have been either prepared or disposed at so early an age to engage in a pursuit which had little to recommend it to the youthful student, except the persuasion that the knowledge thus acquired was, as he expresses it, a price put into the hand (Prov. XVII. 16) of one who knew how to make use of it.

After spending more than three years at Utrecht, Mr. Lardner, removed to Leyden, where, however, he remained only about six months, and then returned to England. Where or in what manner the intervening years were spent, till 1709, does not appear; but, from the learning and talents which he displayed in more mature age, it cannot be doubted that this period was employed in a diligent and conscientious preparation for the profession to which he was destined of a minister of religion. It was not till August 2, in that year, that he made his first appearance in the pulpit; and for four years after this time nothing further is known of him, than that he was a member of the congregational church of which Mr. Matthew Clark, a man of some eminence among the Dissenters of that period, was minister. In 1713, he was invited to reside in the house of Lady Treby, widow of Sir George Treby, late Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, as domestic chaplain, and tutor to her youngest son. Though we have no account of the manner in which the preceding years were spent, yet our knowledge of what Mr. Lardner afterwards became forbids us to doubt that, at this period, he was abundantly qualified by his knowledge, judgment, and learning, for the duties he was now called on to fill. After superintending the studies of young Mr. Treby for three years, he accompanied him on an excursion to the Austrian Netherlands and the United Provinces. From a journal which Mr. Lardner kept of this tour, it was evident that he did not lose the opportunity which it afforded of making exact and judicious observations on the manners and customs of the inhabitants whom he saw and visited, and on the edifices and curiosities of the countries through which he passed.

He continued in the family of Lady Treby, in his capacity of chaplain, till the death of that lady, in 1721; by which event he was left without any regular engagement, and in circumstances of some uncertainty and suspense. I am at a loss, says he, how to dispose of myself. I can say that I am desirous of being useful in the world. Without this, no external advantages relating to myself will make me happy; and yet I have no prospect of being serviceable in the work of the ministry, having preached many years without being favoured with the approbation and choice of any one congregation. This may possibly be accounted for without any material disparagement either to the preacher or the congregations. Mr. Lardner was probably, even at that time, not possessed of a good elocution; and his sermons, if we may judge by those which he afterwards printed, though abounding with rich and valuable matter, were written in a dry and unattractive style, by no means well adapted to please the taste of a popular audience, however interesting they might be to a discerning few.

Two years after the death of Lady Treby, Mr. Lardner suffered another deep affliction in the death of her son, his friend and former pupil, Brindley Treby, Esq., of whom he speaks in the highest terms of affection and esteem, which are of themselves sufficient to assure us that he must have been worthy of the assiduous instruction of such a tutor. To the distress of his mind on this occasion he partly attributes the increase of an infirmity which had been growing upon him,—his deafness; which was now such, that, when sitting in the pulpit while the congregation were singing, he could hardly tell whether they were singing or not. This infirmity continued with him through life; and must have rendered his delivery far from pleasant, except to those who were in the constant habit of attendance upon him, and who had learnt to look beyond the deficiencies or peculiarities of manner, to the judicious sentiments, sound arguments, and impressive practical applications, which distinguish most of his discourses. His intercourse with his private friends was carried on almost entirely in writing, Paper, pens, and ink, being brought in, the visitors wrote down their part of the conversation, to which he replied with great freedom and cheerfulness. These papers he was accustomed to preserve, and their perusal afterwards often led him to subjects of further consideration.

Some years before this time, Mr. Lardner had become a member of two literary societies, which met weekly at a coffee-house in the city. One consisted entirely of ministers, who devoted themselves to theological pursuits; the other was of a more miscellaneous character, for the reading of essays and debating of questions on various learned or entertaining subjects.

About the year 1723, he had been engaged, in conjunction with some other ministers, in a weekly evening lecture, at the Old Jewry, on subjects chiefly of a moral and practical nature; but also entering, in a somewhat more regular and systematic manner than is usual on such occasions, into the evidences of natural and revealed religion. The department of this course allotted to Mr. Lardner was the proof of the Credibility of the Gospel History, on which important subject he delivered three sermons which contained, as it were, the first outlines of the great work on which his fame chiefly rests, ,and may possibly have suggested it to the author's mind. The first part of this work was undertaken shortly afterwards, and was at length published, though after considerable hesitation and delay, in February, 1727, in two volumes, under the title of The Credibility of the Gospel History; or the Facts occasionally mentioned in the New Testament confirmed by passages of ancient authors who were contemporary with our Saviour or his Apostles, or lived near their time.

It is needless to say that this is a work of first-rate merit, and has acquired a reputation which can never fade. It was received at once by all parties, both churchmen and dissenters, who were competent to judge of its merits, with the applause which was justly its due; and its reputation speedily extended to foreign countries. In this performance the author has rendered a most valuable service to the Christian world; and, in particular, has placed within the reach of the theological student a fund of important information, of which no one who values sound learning, or is duly solicitous for his own suitable preparation for the work of the Lord, will neglect to avail himself. It placed him at once in the first rank of Christian scholars,— a rank from which he can never be displaced ; for all parties, not merely those who rejoice in counting him one of themselves, but those who differ most widely from his views of controverted doctrines, agree in awarding the meed of praise to the learned, the accurate, the candid Lardner.

In August, 1729, at the age of forty-five, Mr. Lardner obtained his first settlement as a stated preacher among the dissenters. Having had occasion to preach for Dr. W. Harris, at Crutched Friars, he was in consequence unexpectedly invited by the congregation to be assistant preacher to their minister. On the occasion of his assuming this office for the first time, he offered a prayer in his own behalf that he might be guided in and strengthened for the work, which we insert as a sufficient indication, if any such should be needed, that Lardner, though chiefly known to the world as a learned theologian, was not one of those inconsistent men who have devoted themselves to these researches merely as an exercise of literature and scholarship, but that the great truths and doctrines of the gospel, whose evidences he so laboriously established, were duly prized, and had made their suitable impression on his heart. He was not a man (as some have not been slow to insinuate) who busied himself in defending the outworks, while the treasures laid up in the citadel were overlooked or disregarded. And, we beseech thee, do thou graciously assist thine unworthy servant, whom by thy providence thou hast also called to serve in this place. Grant that he may take great heed to himself and his doctrine, that he may save himself and them that hear him. Do thou enlighten him more and more in the knowledge of the truth, and grant that he may be faithful to thee, and speak the word with all boldness, not shunning to declare the whole counsel of God so far as he is acquainted therewith. And may the hearts of thy people be opened to receive the truth with all readiness; may they carefully and impartially examine the things which they hear, and embrace what is agreeable to thy will. O Lord, our hope is in thee! do thou strengthen us, and make us sufficient for what thou callest us to. Let thy strength be made perfect in our weakness; cause thy face to shine upon us; let us see thy power and thy glory in the sanctuary. May some who are yet in darkness and ignorance be here enlightened; may some be converted; and may thy people be comforted, and continually edified more and more in their most holy faith. May we meet with thee in thine house, and have joy and pleasure in drawing near unto thee. May we by all thy ordinances, by prayer, by the ministry of thy word, and by thy sacraments, be made more meet for all the events of providence, for all the services and sufferings of this life, and for the state of perfection and glory in the world to come.

About this time the writings of Mr. Woolston, against revelation, were attracting considerable attention, and were the occasion of many acute and able replies, in which the objections he urged were very completely and satisfactorily answered; so that, indirectly, his labours promoted a much better purpose than he designed, and tended rather to the furtherance of the gospel: certainly much more so by the reception they met with in this way, from those who were prepared to defend their Master's cause by reason and argument, than by the uncalled — for interference of the magistrate. It is true that Mr. Woolston had not been contented with attacking revealed religion by fair arguments, but, like many others, both before and since, descended to unworthy ribaldry and abuse; treating the miracles of our Saviour in a tone of buffoonery and licentious levity, which could not but prove highly offensive to every serious mind; but was so far from increasing the danger to be apprehended from his book, that it could hardly fail to repel many from a cause which was maintained by such unworthy weapons. On the other hand, when the strong arm of the law is brought to bear upon the controversy, a reaction is likely to arise, especially in the minds of those who, not being themselves well versed in the argument, are apt to form their judgment of the merits of the case from the conduct and temper of the disputants. The victim of persecution, or he who has a plausible pretext for representing himself as such, with a little dexterous management may often so far secure the sympathy of the public, as to obtain more benefit to his cause from the indiscretion of his enemies than he could possibly have done by any other means. Mr. Lardner came forward on this occasion with a very able pamphlet, entitled, A Vindication of three of our blessed Saviour's Miracles; namely, the raising of Jairus's daughter, the widow of Nain's son, and Lazarus. The objections, perhaps, were hardly worthy of such a refutation; but the work abounds with judicious and admirable observations, and, besides, contains in the preface a testimony to the proper mode of conducting religious controversy, which is truly honourable to the author.

If, then, men should be permitted among us to go on in delivering their sentiments freely in matters of religion, and to propose their objections against Christianity itself, I apprehend we have no reason to be in pain for the event. On the side of Christianity I expect to see, as hitherto, the greatest share of learning, good sense, true wit, and fairness of disputation; which things, I hope, will be superior to low ridicule, false argument, and misrepresentation.

For aught I can see, in an age so rational as this we live in, the victory over our enemies may be speedily obtained. They will be driven to those manifest absurdities which they must be ashamed to own, and be silent in dread of universal censure. But suppose the contest should last for some time, we shall all better understand our Bibles; we shall, upon afresh examination, better understand the principles and the grounds of our religion. Possibly some errors may be mixed with our faith, which by this means may be separated, and our faith become more pure. Being more confirmed in the truths of our religion, we shall be more perfect in the duties of it. Instead of being unthinking and nominal, we shall become more generally thinking and real Christians; each one of which advantages will be a large step toward a complete and final victory.

This victory thus obtained, on the ground of argument and persuasion alone, by writing and discourse, will be honourable to us and our religion; and we shall be able to reflect upon it with pleasure. We shall not only keep that good thing we have received, but shall deliver it down to others with advantage. But a victory secured by mere authority is no less to be dreaded than a defeat. It may appear a benefit for the present, but really undermines the cause, and strikes at the root of our holy profession.

In 1730, Mr. Lardner wrote his celebrated letter on the Logos. It was originally a private letter to Lord Barrington, and not intended for publication; and, in fact, remained in the author's cabinet for nearly thirty years, not making its appearance till 1759. From a passage in the tract above mentioned, in reply to Woolston, pointed out by Dr. Kippis, evidently implying that the author was at that time a believer in the pre-existence of Christ,—it seems most probable that the letter on the Logos contains the result of investigations in which he had only very recently engaged, and the statement of opinions he had just embraced.

In 1733, appeared the first volume of the second part of the Credibility of the Gospel History. The main object of this extensive and most valuable work is, to collect into one view the train of historical evidence by which we are authorized to receive the books of the New Testament as genuine, and, consequently, authentic and credible. If it be asked, why we receive any ancient work as in reality the production of its reputed author, our answer is, that it has been handed down to us from those times by an uninterrupted tradition; that though, perhaps, no copy of the work is actually extant which can with any probability be referred to that remote period, yet it has been described, quoted, and commented on, by a succession of intervening writers, in such a manner as to prove that the work we have in our hands, presenting the same passages which they profess to have quoted from it, is the same in all essential respects with that which existed in their time. The genuineness of the writings ascribed to these intervening witnesses, and in which their testimony is contained, is of course determined chiefly in the same manner, but partly also from the constant consent of all succeeding times, and from the correspondence of their contents with the known character of the supposed authors, and the events, opinions, and controversies, of the age in which they lived. Now, when this principle of evidence is applied to the books of the New testament, it is not enough to say that they possses the same marks and proofs of genuineness with the books ascribed to Cicero, Livy, Virgil, &c we find upon examination that the argument, though of the same kind, is beyond all comparison more extensive, complete, and satisfactory. But to collect and place in one view, another, (for this is impossible,) to reduce into one consecutive series the various testimonies derived from a multitude of writers in a succession of centuries, of which that evidence consists, aspires, as will readily be imagined, a prodigious extent of reading and laborious research. This important labour Dr. Lardner has performed; and the result is placed, not merely within the reach of the scholar, (though he is of course more competent to judge of its value,) but also of the English reader, who assuming (as he may with confidence on the combined authority of all persons of every party who are qualified to express an opinion at the translations are correct and the historical statements to be relied upon, may satisfy himself the main fact, that the books we now possess can be traced up to a period approaching inantiquity that of the supposed authors to whom they have been uniformly ascribed, and that they have been transmitted to us without any material change.

He exhibit this argument in its entire state, and to enable the reader to judge of its full value, it is obviously necessary to present each passage in which any book of the New Testament is either expressly cited or evidently alluded to; and to shew, by a comparison of the quotation with the corresponding portion of our modern editions, that the ancient writer had in his hands a book substantially the same with that which now exists. It is also necessary to give such an account of the witnesses themselves as may furnish a fair estimate of their credibility; that is to say, the reasons derived from the history of the times, from the general state of the Christian world, from the character and reputation of the writers in question, determined by the concurring information both of contemporary and succeeding authors who recorded their lives, and enumerated and described their works,—which authorize us to rely upon what we read, and to believe that in the books which bear their names we have what is equivalent to the testimony of living witnesses, to the fact, that the writings now ascribed to the apostles and evangelists existed in their times, were ascribed to the same persons, and possessed the same authority which is yielded to them at the present day. In this manner, proceeding step by step, either tracing the proof upward from our own time, or, as Lardner has preferred, pursuing the stream from its source, till he brings it down to the commencement of what may be termed modern literature, we find a close and uninterrupted tradition; a chain of evidence; every link of which is intimately connected with that which follows, so that what now exists and is manifest to our senses is shewn to be in, such a manner necessarily dependent upon that whish has been, that we are bound to receive it with the same confidence and certainty.

It is obvious that to execute a plan like this, upon such a scale, was a work of no ordinary magnitude; it was, in fact, an undertaking which might be thought adequate to occupy the entire life of a laborious scholar. It may be added, that, important and interesting as the object might be, the reward was not to be sought in any shape which the children of this world are accustomed to value. For those who would take an interest in or avail themselves of labours like these, and who were competent to estimate either the excellence of their object, or the labour and talent displayed in their performance, are at all times comparatively few; and those who were likely to seek to possess themselves of a work of such extent, which with all its merit was but scantily recommended by the usual attractions of popularity, were still fewer. Such a writer must consequently lay his account with reaping a limited harvest of popular favour, and look for his chief earthly reward in the consciousness of having performed a valuable service to the cause of God and of religion, which the discerning few would understand and appreciate; and which, if it procured not for its author immediate fame with the multitude, would establish for him an dying, an ever-growing reputation with all those who duly value whatever contributes to promote the best interests of mankind. Our author reaped full the reward which he sought for, and was not so inconsistent as to repine, because, in serving God, he did not also gain the wages of Mammon. The sale of the successive volumes of his great work seldom did much more than pay their expenses, and he finally disposed of the copyright of the whole for the insignificant sum of a hundred and fifty pounds.

The second part of the Credibility, exhibiting in full detail the historic evidence of the Christian scriptures, occupies in the original edition twelve volumes. The first of these, as we have already stated, appeared in 1733; and the succeeding volumes followed at various intervals as they were completed, the whole not being brought to a conclusion till the year 1755. The last volume contains a general recapitulation of the whole argument, and an abridged statement of the facts on which it depends, which concludes in the following terms:—

And now, I hope, there needs not any long harangue to shew the force of our argument. In the first part of this work it was shewn, that there II not any thing in the books of the New Testament, however strictly canvassed, inconsistent with their supposed time and authors; which alone (as was formerly shewn at large) affords good reason to believe that they were written by persons who lived before the destruction of Jerusalem, which happened in the 70th year of our Lord's nativity, according to the common computation.

In this second part we have had express and positive evidence, that these books were written by those whose names they bear, even the aposties of Jesus Christ, and their well-known companions and fellow-labourers. It is the concurring testimony of early and later ages, and of writers in all countries in the several parts of the known world, Europe, Asia, and Africa, and of men of different sentiments in divers respects; for we have had before us the testimony of those called heretics, especially in the third and fourth centuries, as well as Catholics. These books were received from the beginning with the greatest respect, and have been publicly and solemnly read in the assemblies of Christians throughout the world, in every age from that time to this. They were early translated into the languages of divers countries and people; they were quoted by way of proof in all arguments of a religious nature, and were appealed to on both sides in all points of controversy that arose among Christians themselves: they were likewise recommended to the perusal of others, as containing the authentic account of the Christian doctrine, and many commentaries have been written upon them to explain and illustrate them: all which affords full assurance of their genuineness and integrity. If these books had not been written by those to whom they are ascribed, and if the things related in them had not been true, they could not have been received from the beginning: if they contain a true account of things, the Christian religion is from God, and cannot but be embraced by serious and attentive men, who impartially examine, and are willing to be determined by evidence.

As Mr. Lardner advanced in the execution of this great work, the volumes as they appeared in succession were translated into German, Dutch, and Latin, by writers distinguished for their own original productions, and the author rose higher in esteem and reputation among the most eminent divines both at home and abroad. His correspondence was very extensive, and by no means confined to persons of his own religious connexion or opinions. Most of the learned foreigners who came to England visited Dr. Lardner, and often appear to have derived, valuable assistance from him in the prosecution of their literary designs and pursuits.

While our author was engaged on the Credibility, he appeared occasionally from the press with other minor but still very valuable productions. In 1737, he published, Counsels of Prudence for the use of young People; a Discourse on the wisdom of the serpent, and the innocence of the dove; in which are recommended general rules of prudence, with particular directions relating to business, conversation, friendship, and general usefulness. This excellent and judicious piece has been much and deservedly admired, as containing a store of sound and valuable advice, well adapted to the young persons for whom it was intended, and proceeding from a rare combination of the simplicity and godly sincerity of the pious Christian with the accurate knowledge of the world and of human nature, which is commonly the result only of a much more extensive intercourse with general society. It has been frequently reprinted, and, it may be hoped, has been of extensive service in promoting the important object for which it was designed and is so well fitted. The Counsels of Prudence were followed shortly afterwards by two excellent sermons against conformity to this world, which contain a valuable treasure of practical wisdom in the application of genuine Christian principles to the conduct of men in society. In this discourse the author has executed, with great skill and success, the somewhat delicate task of steering the middle path between too large an allowance to the customs and usages of the world, and the puritanical strictness which at that period still prevailed to a considerable extent among thee descendants of those worthies who in a former age had been obliged, in a great measure, to go out of the world that they might preserve an unviolated conscience.

In 1740 Mr. Lardner lost his father, with whom he had till this time resided, ever since he quitted the family of Lady Treby. He died at the advanced age of eighty-seven, and had for some time been, as it were, the father of the dissenting ministry. He was one of the few still remaining who could look back to their youthful recollections of bonds and imprisonments which were the usual portion of the more active ministers of the dark and troubled times of the last two Stuarts. He is described as having been in his time a powerful and popular preacher; but had now been for several years laid aside through the infirmities of advanced age. His decease under such circumstances might by others be considered rather as a summons to his reward; his work being done, and the sufferings of mortality alone remaining to him in this world: nevertheless, his son records the event in terms which indicate how deeply and mournfully his mind was affected on the occasion. I am, says he, full of grief, and find it very difficult to bear up under the affliction. I entreat the Lord Almighty to be my father and protector, to support me, and to guide me in the remaining part of my life, so as that I may live to his praise and glory, I entreat and pray that he will enable me to behave as a Christian, and one persuaded of his fatherly care and protection, and that this affliction may be improved by me for my further humiliation and repentance, for engaging in a closer dependence on God,—for quickening my preparations for another and a better world.

Such expressions as these from the pen of a man like Lardner ought to be preserved, lest any of those who, in all succeeding ages, will know him chiefly as a scholar and a theologian, should hastily imagine that he was nothing more or better. Though, indeed, to say nothing of his excellent practical writings, they must be careless students of the Credibility, who fail to perceive in the biographical notices of the principal writers whose testimony he has occasion to record, and in a multitude of incidental traits, scattered here and there, abundant indications that the author was a man not only of extensive learning, but of deep and influential piety.

No production of old Mr. Lardner's pen has reached our times; but such expressions as we have quoted, though the natural effusions of an amiable, filial attachment, may be received as a testimony that he who could inspire such a sentiment must have been not unworthy of it. Besides our author, he had one other son, Richard, a barrister, who died in 1733; and one daughter, married to Mr. Daniel Neal, well known for his History of New England, and still more for his History of the Puritans.

In the same year Mr. Lardner also lost his excellent friend and colleague, Dr. William Harris. His funeral sermon on this occasion was published, and contains a high and doubtless well-deserved eulogium on that gentleman's character and talents. After his decease, Mr. Lardner had a unanimous invitation to undertake the pastoral charge of the congregation; but his various engagements, added to his increasing deafness, induced him to decline any other ministerial duty than that which he had already assumed in the pulpit. This he continued to exercise for some years longer, in connexion with the celebrated Dr. George Benson.

In 1743, our author published three Sermons on the argument in favour of Christianity derived from the present circumstances of the Jewish people. He shews, in a very distinct and satisfactory manner, the correspondence between the predictions of our Lord and the condition of that people since his time, especially since the destruction of their city and temple, and their consequent dispersion among all the nations of the earth; that it is agreeable also to many prophecies in the Old Testament; that it affords a strong proof that the Messiah expected by the Jews is already come, since he was to appear during the continuance of the second temple, of which it is now so many ages since there was no longer one stone left standing on another, and thus furnishes a decisive argument for the divine authority of the Gospel. He illustrates his argument on these different points with his usual judgment, candour, and fairness, and deduces the practical inferences and admonitions arising out of so signal an example of the retributive justice and moral government of Divine Providence with, perhaps, more than his ordinary force and impressiveness. Though he looks forward to a time, still, however, to all human appearance, as remote as ever, when the branches that had been broken off should be grafted in again, he does not agree in the expectation which many have expressed, and which is perhaps the most general opinion, that the Jewish people will be again established in their own land, where the temple is to be rebuilt and the ceremonial law restored. He thinks it more probable, that, when the Jews shall have professed themselves believers in the Messiahship of Jesus, the result will be that the middle wall of partition will indeed be for ever broken down, and that all peculiarities of character and institutions, as well as of privileges, will be utterly done away; as there will then be no longer any occasion for the continuance of that standing evidence of the truth of the Christian system which we now derive from the permanent existence of the Jews as a distinct and peculiar people. This may be so; but perhaps, amidst the opposite speculations and conjectures of those who, on the strength of their own interpretations of prophecy, attempt to lift up the dread veil of futurity, the conclusion of the cool unprejudiced thinker will be, that it is better to leave questions of this sort where we found them; and if there be in scripture predictions yet unaccomplished of events still to take place in the history of this world, to wait till time shall at length have disclosed the mystery. The prophecies were not intended to make us prophets.

For a series of years, at this period of Mr. Lardner's life, very few events are recorded by his biographer. His disposition did not incline him to take any active part in public life, and his infirmity of deafness, though it might not altogether disqualify him for public business, naturally prevented his friends from seeking to place him in any of those situations which might tend to bring him personally much before the world. His days and years seem to have passed in a uniform course of laborious study, engaged for the most part in collecting the materials for his great work, the successive volumes of which appeared from time to time, bringing down the regular and unbroken chain to the commencement of the modern aera, and at the same time accumulating a large mass of highly curious and valuable information for the student of ecclesiastical history and theological literature.

In 1745, he received from the University of Aberdeen, by diploma, the degree of Doctor in Divinity. This was an honour, says Dr. Kippis, which our author did not solicit, but which, when it was bestowed upon him, he did not think it unbecoming in him to accept; preserving herein the due medium between seeking for such a distinction, and despising it when offered. His own remark, in the case of Dr. Hunt, deserves notice: In the year 1729, says he, the University of Edinburgh, out of a regard to his distinguished merit, complimented him with the highest honorary title in their gift, a piece of respect not to be slighted by any man of letters. When we consider Dr. Lardner's extraordinary attainments and learning, the reflection which he made on receiving his degree, displayed a remarkable humbleness of mind. I pray God, said he, I may not be elevated by any acceptance my labours meet with, but that I may proceed with humility, diligence, and integrity in the whole of my life.

Kippis's Life of Lardner, XXXVI.

In 1750, Dr. Lardner published a volume of Sermons, chiefly of a practical character. These sermons, it may be presumed, are a fair specimen of the usual style of his preaching, and probably afford us, at the same time, a tolerably exact criterion of the preacher's own mind and character. They are judicious and instructive; and the perusal of them cannot fail to be profitable to those who can be persuaded to bestow upon them the attention which they deserve. The style is correct and perspicuous, but altogether unadorned; the divisions are formal and inartificial, and the whole composition indicates as little as can be conceived of the rhetorician's art. The practical applications, though rational and sensible, scarcely ever rise to eloquence; displaying little of that unction which is perhaps indispensable in one who seeks to rouse the attention and interest the feelings of a popular audience. When we further consider the preacher's physical infirmity of extreme deafness, rendering it next to impossible that he should possess that power of modulating his voice which is almost essential to a public speaker, it is not perhaps to be much wondered at that his hearers were not numerous. Dr. Lardner himself, as he advanced in years, became more and more sensible of this; and he was in consequence induced, in 1751, to resign his office of morning preacher at Crutched Friars.

In 1753, Dr. Lardner printed, but without his name, An Essay on the Creation and Fall of Man. After referring to tile various modes which have been proposed of interpreting this difficult narrative, he proceeds to comment upon it as a true history to be understood in its literal sense, but apparently without pledging himself to any positive conclusion. On the argument for the Trinity, derived from the expression Let us make man, he gives no decided opinion of his own, but contents himself with stating that of many learned Christians, who suppose that the style common to princes and great men, who often speak in the plural number, is here ascribed to God. It is rather remarkable that he does not advert to the singular circumstance of there being two distinct accounts of the creation of man, differing materially from each other, and evidently, from the difference of style and other circumstances, not written by the same person. He then proceeds to the account of the fall, as he styles it, in conformity with the received usage; a usage, however, unauthorized by scripture, which nowhere employs the expression, and, in fact, contains no statement in any part of it from which we can fairly infer any degradation, either physical or moral, of Adam's posterity in consequence of his transgression. In speaking of the introduction of the serpent as an agent and speaker in the transaction, he says, it is generally understood that here was the contrivance and agency of Satan. But he does not say that he himself either allows or questions this, and goes on, in commenting on the rest of the story, to speak of the serpent only. In his general inferences, he expresses himself somewhat more decidedly in opposition to the common notion of original sin, which he justly stigmatizes as, in reality, making God the author of sin. What reason is there, he justly asks, to apprehend so great an alteration made in the nature and powers of man by Adam's transgression? Let us, then, not be unwilling to consider, whether the consequences of the fall of our first parents be not aggravated by some; and let us be careful not to admit any schemes which are derogatory to God's honour, and which countenance or justify men in their allowed weaknesses or wilful transgressions. On the whole, however, this tract is a remarkable instance of the caution and reserve which our author still thought it prudent to use when he had occasion to touch in public on this and other controverted questions. With the exception of the passage just cited, he does not pledge himself to any positive conclusion, though an attentive reader may not find it difficult to trace the opinions to which he was chiefly inclined; and even to this he did not think it advisable to affix his name.

This is the more remarkable, as there is good reason to think that he was less reserved in the expression of his opinions from the pulpit on subjects on which it might be expected that a deviation from popular notions would render him obnoxious. But the fact may have been, that a preacher like Lardner, who had little or nothing of what is vulgarly called popularity to lose, might feel under less restraint than one who was more followed by the crowd, and who might therefore suffer more by offending its prejudices. It was his lot to address a small, but a select, attached, intelligent, and reflecting audience; and though the ordinary strain of his preaching was, as we have stated, chiefly practical, yet it was founded on what he regarded as at once rational and evangelical principles, and consequently had habituated his congregation to such trains of thought as would dispose and enable them to enter into his views on many points for which he might consider the public at large as not prepared. Hence, for example, in three sermons on the Demoniacs mentioned in the New Testament, he openly. defended the opinion since so ably maintained by Farmer, but which, however just and rational it may be thought, leads immediately to inferences altogether inconsistent with the notions commonly entertained of what is called the plenary inspiration of the sacred writers. Again, in a very interesting series of sermons on Phil. II. 5-11, prepared by himself for the press, though not published till some years after his death, he lays before his hearers a clear and accurate statement of the three leading opinions maintained by different Christian sects on the person and dignity of Christ, giving the preference himself decidedly, and without reserve, to that which affirms in the language of St. Peter, that he was simply a man approved of God by miracles and wonders and signs which God did by him.

In 1756 and 1757 appeared, in three volumes, the Supplement to the Credibility. Notwithstanding the strong terms in which we have spoken of our author's former publication, it is not, perhaps, too much to say of this, that it is the most generally interesting and useful of all his works. It is otherwise entitled, a History of the Apostles and Evangelists, writers of the New Testament. The first volume contains general observations on the Canon of the New Testament, and a History of the Four Evangelists, with the evidences of the genuineness of the four Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles, and an examination of the times when these books were written. There is, likewise, a chapter concerning the time when the Apostles left Judea to go and preach the Christian religion to other countries; which event, our author thinks, could not have taken place till after the council at Jerusalem. The volume concludes with a discussion of the question, Whether any one of the first three Evangelists had seen the Gospel of the others before he wrote his own? And here Dr. Lardner hath determined, with great appearance of reason and argument, that Matthew, Mark, and Luke, did not abridge or transcribe from each other, but are distinct, independent, and harmonious witnesses. The second volume comprehends the History of St. Paul, displaying the evidence of the genuineness of his fourteen Epistles, particularly that to the Hebrews, and ascertained the times in which they were written. In the third volume, the seven Catholic epistles, and the Revelation of St. John, are considered, and histories given of St. James, St. Peter, and St. Jude. In conclusion, it is shewn, that there is no reason to believe that any of the sacred books of the New Testament have been lost.

Kippis's Life of Lardner, LII.

It is needless to say that such a work, by such a writer, contains a treasure of most valuable and interesting information for all classes of readers, and, more especially, for all theological students. Indeed, it can scarcely be said that any one deserves this latter name who has not made it the subject of his most diligent and careful examination. We may not always agree with the author in his conclusions on some points relating to the history and authorship of several books of the New Testament, which have been the subjects of dispute; but he never gives his opinion without stating, at the same time, his reasons very fully and candidly, so that he commonly furnishes the reader with the means of forming his own judgment. This remark may apply particularly to the Epistle to the Hebrews; which he ascribes to St. Paul with a confidence which the evidence, as collected and stated by himself, will scarcely, we think, appear to authorize in the estimation of an unprejudiced and attentive reader. The same may, perhaps, be said of the authority ascribed to the Epistle of Jude, and the second Epistle of Peter; (at least, the second chapter;) with respect to which, however, the author allows that it would not be safe to receive any doctrinal interpretation on the strength of any passage cited from them, unless confirmed by other undisputed scriptures.

In the year 1758, appeared a letter to the well-known philanthropist, Mr. Jonas Hanway, remonstrating against the name of Magdalen Houses, which it was proposed to give to establishments for the reception of penitent females of loose character. He shews very clearly that the prevailing notion that Mary Magdalen was the woman mentioned in the seventh chapter of Luke, who washed our Saviour's feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head, and who is there called by the Pharisee a sinner, is unfounded. From the manner in which her name is introduced along with that of the wife of Herod's steward and other women, who ministered to him of their substance, there is every reason to believe that she was a woman of rank and property, against whom there is no ground for supposing that any imputation had ever existed. She had been the subject of one of our Lord's benevolent miracles; but of what nature the disorder was from which she was relieved, the expression of the Evangelist, that seven devils or demons had gone out of her, does not enable us to conjecture. However, she ever after manifested the most affectionate gratitude to her benefactor, and was distinguished by him with marked tokens of his esteem and regard, particularly as being the first to whom he made himself known after his resurrection. To call such an institution, therefore, a Magdalen-house, appears to be taking a very unwarrantable liberty with the name of an honourable, and, for any thing we know, truly excellent woman. The letter was sent too late; or, at all events, it did not prevent the name being given, though no one who attends to these considerations can fail to perceive its impropriety.

In 1759, Dr. Lardner published, but without his real name, the letter on the Logos, already mentioned as addressed to Lord Barrington, under the assumed name of Papinian, in the year 1730. It now made its appearance accompanied by two valuable postscripts; the first containing an explanation of the terms Spirit, Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, as contained in the scriptures; the second containing remarks on some passages of the late Dr. Clayton, Bishop of Clogher, in vindication of the Arian scheme. It is by this remarkable publication that our author is chiefly known in the department of dogmatic theology. The question professedly discussed is, Whether the Logos, understanding by that term, according to the Arian hypothesis, a great pre-existent created Spirit, who was employed by the Supreme as a subordinate agent in the creation of the world, occupied the place of a human soul in the person of Jesus Christ? Our author, after confessing that he was at one time inclined to this singular notion, now gives it up altogether; for the scriptures represent our Lord as exalted to power and great glory as a reward of his sufferings here on earth; whereas, it is difficult to conceive how such a being as Christ is here supposed to have been, could receive any exaltation, merely by being set over those creatures to whom, as their Creator, he was immeasurably superior before. Moreover, he is uniformly called in the New Testament, a man; a title which could not be properly ascribed to such an anomalous being as this hypothesis represents him to have been. Further, this supposition is inconsistent with any rational account of the temptation; for how could he who made the heavens and the earth be tempted by the offer of all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them? By removing him in reality so far from any participation in what can properly be termed human nature, it enervates the force of his example, and, in fact, as far as we are concerned, destroys it altogether. Finally, what is there extraordinary or wonderful, upon this hypothesis, in Christ's resurrection? Or, rather, is it not much more difficult and amazing to conceive how such a being should ever, for any the slightest interval, be subject to death at all? The resurrection of Christ could then be no pattern or pledge of that of mankind at large, which is the plain doctrine of the New Testament. The author then proceeds to comment on several texts which are commonly supposed to favour this scheme, and particularly the introduction to St. John's Gospel, in which he conceives the term logos,to denote the divine wisdom personified,—an attribute of the divine nature, but not any being or person distinct from God the Father himself. When it is said the Word was made or became flesh, the term flesh denotes human nature in general; and the expression is equivalent to what we are elsewhere told, that in him (Christ) dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead; —that in him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and of knowledge.

This is, perhaps, the principle of interpretation which is better adapted than any other to meet all the difficulties of this remarkable passage, and, under one modification or another, has united in its favour, perhaps, an increasing majority of Unitarian critics. The notion of an inferior Deity, says Lardner, pre-existing, and then incarnate, seems to have been brought into the church by some of the learned converts from heathenism, who had not thoroughly abandoned the principles in which they had been educated. Perhaps, likewise, they hoped by this means to render the doctrine of Christ more palatable to heathen people, especially their philosophers. Moreover, the Christians of the second century, and afterwards, were too averse to all Jews in general, and even to believers, from among that people. （XI. 111.)

This treatise, though now bearing a high character and reputation, on account of the author's eminence, and containing, unquestionably, a great mass of acute and ingenious criticism on many of the most remarkable texts that relate or have been supposed to relate to the person, office, or dignity, of Christ, did not make any great impression, as we learn from Dr. Kippis, at the time of its first publication. The sentiments contained in it were those confined to a few persons, and others were not disposed to embrace them. It is needless to say that the case is now greatly altered; and, we trust, that increasing numbers will long continue to look to the Letter on the Logos with deep interest, not only as a valuable storehouse of sound argument and judicious criticism, but as marking, by its first appearance, a memorable epoch in the history and progress of religious truth.

In 1760, Dr. Lardner published a second volume of Sermons. These are of the same general character with the former series, inasmuch as they have all a practical and devotional tendency; though in some instances they relate more to doctrinal points and curious speculations, which, however, the author never fails to apply in such a manner as to promote the main and essential object of the Christian preacher. Several remarkable particulars in the last sufferings and death of our Lord,—his character, as described under the twofold title of Son of Man and Son of God,— his services rendered to the children of men, in that while he was rich, he became poor (or lived in poverty), that we through his poverty might be rich,—are dwelt upon in a very interesting and instructive manner; so that the volume contains a rich and copious store of valuable information for the Christian disciple.

In 1762 appeared Remarks on Dr. Ward's Dissertations on several Passages of Scripture; containing an ingenious and instructive discussion of various historical and critical questions relating to sacred literature. One point on which Dr. Lardner expresses a very decided opinion in this publication may, nevertheless, be thought by some rather dubious. He strongly contests the notion of there having been two classes of proselytes to the Jewish religion, commonly called, proselytes of the gate and proselytes of righteousness; the latter of whom only, it is supposed, had obliged themselves to fulfil the whole law. If it is only intended to call in question the application of the term proselyte to any except persons of this latter class, the dispute is merely about the meaning of a word; but there are, surely, many indications of the existence of a numerous class of devout persons, who, though originally heathen, had abandoned the practice of idolatry, and were permitted to join in the worship of the synagogue, and even of the temple, without becoming, in the strict sense contended for by our author, proselytes. There is no appearance in the Old Testament of any requisition of this kind from those who professed their faith in the true God. The story of Izates, king of Adiabene, as related by Josephus, seems to prove that it was not insisted on in later times, except by certain foolish hot-headed zealots; and it is difficult to believe that, in places remote from Palestine, the numbers who resorted to the synagogue worship, amounting, in some instances at least, to a great multitude, (Acts XVII. 4,) obliged themselves thereby to observe the whole of the Jewish ritual.

In 1764, Dr. Lardner published, but without his name, a letter to Dr. Macknight, objecting to, the view which that writer had given in his Harmony of the history of our Lord's resurrection. The problem of harmonizing these accounts, that is, of combining the reports of all the four Evangelists into one distinct and consistent narrative, has always been found a difficult one; and it may be doubted whether any solution that has been proposed is in all points satisfactory. Macknight's idea of a visit by the women to the sepulchre on the preceding evening after the close of the Jewish sabbath, is certainly very improbable, and quite unauthorized by the account of any one of the Evangelists. On the other hand, Lardner's supposition of only one appearance of our Lord to Mary Magdalene in the presence of the other women is equally arbitrary and gratuitous, and apparently contradicted by the narrative of Mark, if not by that of John. It may be practicable, but it certainly is not easy, to put all the four accounts together, in such a manner as to include every particular mentioned by each of them, and thus remove all ground for the imputation of contradictions. But it must be remembered that we derive our knowledge of these particulars from witnesses who beheld them under the influence of strongly excited feelings, which left them little leisure to attend to the minutiae of place and time; that the latter especially could be marked by them only in a comparatively vague and indefinite manner; and that, at all events, even though the discrepancy on one or two incidental points should be not apparent only, but real, it will not disprove the testimony as to the main fact, but, on the contrary, put an end to the suspicion that the different narrators agreed upon a tale; in which case there would have been none of these difficulties, but we should have had one and the same account from all, agreeing in every particular. As it is, we have four distinct narratives, which proceed from as many distinct and independent witnesses.

Our author's time continued, however, to be chiefly occupied with the labours necessary to carry towards its conclusion the great business of his life; and this year he accordingly produced the first volume, in quarto, of a large Collection of Ancient Jewish and Heathen Testimonies to the Truth of the Christian Religion. Three more volumes successively appeared, and completed the work in 1767. It contains a general view of all the various illustrations which he had collected in the course of his extensive and laborious researches into the history and literature of those times which could in any way throw light on the main facts of the Gospel history, or on the history of the primitive church, and thus either strengthen the direct evidence, or serve to remove obscurities, difficulties, and objections. It would be scarcely possible, in any moderate compass, to give any distinct account of a work so multifarious and diversified in its character, though simple and uniform in its object. We can do no more than recommend it to the diligent attention not merely of the theological student, but of every one who is desirous of duly understanding and appreciating the historical evidence of the religion he professes. The materials of this work were doubtless the gradual accumulations of the author's researches throughout the whole of the long period during which his attention had been chiefly directed to these subjects; but the preparation of a work of such magnitude after he had passed his eightieth year, and its completion, at that advanced age, within the short compass of three years, sufficiently proves that his powers of mind were preserved unimpaired to the last in a very extraordinary degree, and moreover continued in unintermitted exertion with a diligence and energy rarely observed in the period of health and strength, at a time when most men would think themselves entitled to rest from their labours. There is no indication of a decline of his powers in this or any of his later productions; indeed, Dr. Kippis informs us that he retained to the last the use of all his faculties, his hearing excepted, in a remarkable degree.

The fourth volume of the Jewish and Heathen Testimonies, the last of our author's productions which appeared in his lifetime, was published in 1767, when he had completed his eighty-third year. Even then, however, it was not in his nature to rest from his labours, or to decline further exertions; never thinking he had done enough so long as the ability still remained to him of working in his Master's vineyard. No sooner was the collection of Heathen Testimonies out of his hands, than he sat down to prepare the history of the Early Heretics of the Christian Church, in which he soon made considerable progress. But before he could complete this work, it pleased Divine Providence to call him to his reward. In the ensuing summer of 1768, he was seized with a rapid decline, which carried him off in a few weeks at Hawkhurst, the place of his nativity, where he had a small paternal estate. Here he died on the 24th of July of that year, in the 85th year of his age. His remains were interred in the burial ground at Bunhill Fields, where he who loves to meditate on the records of English Nonconformity finds so many impressive memorials to enliven his grateful recollection of the venerable dead.

Though Dr. Lardner was not permitted to finish his History of Ancient Heretics, his papers were found to be in such a state of forwardness as to justify his friends in committing them to the care of the Rev. John Hogg, of Exeter. By this gentleman the work was completed, under the guidance of such hints as the author himself had left for such parts as were not finished by his own hand, and finally published in 1780. Some allowance must, of course, be made for the circumstances in which this work was prepared, and, perhaps, for the inferior interest of the subject. It is, however, a subject of considerable interest and importance, and particularly well suited to so proverbially candid a writer as Lardner. No man would understand better how to make the necessary deductions from exaggerated, partial, and passionate statements;—remembering that we have our accounts of these (so called) heretics almost exclusively from the writings of their opponents, and that it is next to impossible, even for those who have no disposition to pervert and misrepresent, to give a perfectly fair account of parties and opinions which he does not himself approve. Under these circumstances it is clearly impossible, in the nature of things, that we should have a history of ancient heretics that can be thoroughly depended on; but Lardner's, probably, approaches as near to it as is practicable with our present imperfect and partial sources of information.

Besides this larger work, eight sermons, most of which had been transcribed and prepared for the press by the author himself, were published after his decease, with a memoir of his life and writings. The fifth and sixth of these are the sermons before referred to, preached at the Old Jewry lecture, as containing a sort of sketch of the argument of his great work, particularly of that part of it which relates to the facts occasionally mentioned in the Gospel History. Another valuable series of sermons on Philippians II. 5-11, which have already been mentioned, were first published in 1784, by the Rev. Mr. Wiche, of Maidstone.

One of the brightest ornaments of the school of liberal and rational divines among the Protestant dissenters in the earlier part of the last century, was born at Exeter, September 16, 1697. His grandfather was a clergyman at Kettering, in Northamptonshire; but his father having been brought up by a Nonconformist uncle, himself embraced the same religious profession. His mother is spoken of as a woman of great worth and excellence; and he may, therefore, probably be added to the list of eminent men, in various departments of life, who have derived from maternal influence and example no small portion of the virtues and graces which afterwards distinguished them. He received the first part of his education at the free school of his native city; where he is said to have given early indications of talent and proficiency. He afterwards became a member of the academy already spoken of as conducted by Mr. Hallet, at which several other men of high and deserved eminence were prepared for the Christian ministry. Here we are informed

Funeral Sermon, by Dr. Fleming, p. 8.

Was descended from a good family, who resided at Great Salkeld, in the county of Cumberland, where he was born September 1, 1699. His parents were pious, worthy persons, and zealous Nonconformists, having suffered considerably in this cause in the troubled times of the preceding generation; and they had the satisfaction to see several of a numerous family grow up and distinguish themselves not only in support of the same principles, but in the graces of a Christian life. George Benson was soon remarked for a seriousness of temper, and a disposition to study, which induced his parents to devote him to the Christian ministry; and for this purpose, after having passed through the usual course of grammar learning, he was sent to the academy kept by Dr. Dixon, of Whitehaven, already mentioned as having had the honour to number Taylor of Norwich, among its alumni. Here, however, he continued only about a year, after which he removed to the University of Glasgow. His family appear to have been orthodox, and he himself was brought up in Calvinistic principles, which, however, he abandoned at an early period in the course of his preparatory studies. Indeed, he does not appear at any time to have considered himself as bound down to the profession of a system of human formation, but to have endeavoured, from the first, to derive his religious principles from the scripture, and from that alone. It was this peculiarity in their constitution and practice, which induced him to take up his lot among those who have been called the liberal dissenters, that they neither confined themselves, nor attempted to impose fetters upon others, but endeavoured to pursue truth with perfect freedom, fairness, and impartiality, in whatever quarter it might appear to lie. May this true liberality ever continue to characterize their descendants! and may a time at length arrive, when other denominations shall perceive more clearly the genuine Protestant principle, that the Bible is the only proper standard of religious truth, and no longer attempt either to apply or to impose any other!

Not that we would have them attempt to impose even that. In this, as in all other respects, let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.

The question of predestination, in particular, appeared to require a careful settlement in the first place, not only in order that he might govern his own conduct accordingly, but because it appeared to him scarcely reasonable to address the motives of religion, and the language of exhortation and instruction, to those who were chained down to one course of action by an irreversible decree. The views upon this subject, which he then adopted, are distinctly stated in a Review of Predestination, in which he endeavours to shew that the scriptural expressions commonly supposed to favour the notion of decrees, are a figurative application of language adopted from the proceedings of human monarchs, who are accustomed to deliberate in their secret councils on the more important transactions of their government, and to issue decrees, doubtless intended at the time, like the laws of the Medes and Persians, to be unchangeable. But previous consultations and subsequent resolutions and decrees are only needed where the ideas are limited and successive; defects or imperfections by no means to be ascribed to the all-perfect Deity. The popular language of scripture, however, is founded on this supposition, in order to give such an impression as the human mind, especially at that early stage of its development to which the Scripture history chiefly refers, can most readily comprehend of the wisdom and steadiness of the course of Divine Providence.

About the close of the year 1721, Mr. Benson came to London, and having been examined and approved by several of the most eminent Presbyterian ministers, he began to preach, first at Chertsey, and afterwards in London. By the recommendation of Dr. Calamy, he afterwards went to Abingdon, in Berkshire, and settled as minister of a dissenting congregation there, with whom he continued for seven years, diligently employed in studying the sacred writings, and labouring to instruct and improve the people under his care. During his stay at Abingdon, he preached and published three serious practical discourses, addressed to young people, which were well received. But of these he afterwards forbade the reprinting, as containing views of some disputed doctrines which did not accord with his more matured opinions. Here he also published a Defence of the Reasonableness of Prayer, in a Letter to a Friend; in which he discusses with great judgment the common philosophical objections, and establishes the duty as well as the efficacy of prayer, upon plain and Christian principles. To this is added, a translation of a discourse of Maximus Tyrius on prayer, with remarks upon it. He shews that prayer, as a natural expression of our sense of the perfections and providence of God, of our dependence on him and obligations to him, and of our concern for moral improvement, is a rational and advantageous exercise of the mind, and may with reason be expected to procure favours from God; not by working a change in the Deity, who will always do what is best; but by producing such a change for the better in man, as will render it best and fittest for the Deity to distinguish the pious and humble suppliant with instances of his particular favour.

In 1726 he married Mrs. Elizabeth Hills, widow, with whom he lived very happily for fourteen years. In 1729 he received and accepted an invitation to become minister of a congregation in King John's Court, Southwark, the duties of which station he discharged with great acceptance and satisfaction for eleven years.

The admirable success which had attended Mr. Locke's endeavours to apply the principles of just and rational interpretation in his excellent commentary on five of St. Paul's Epistles, had often inspired a wish that some person similarly qualified would continue the work on a similar plan, and in the same enlightened and liberal spirit. We have already seen that Mr. Peirce, in the latter part of his life, entered upon this labour, and gave to the world an exposition of the Epistles to the Colossians and Philippians, with part of the Epistle to the Hebrews, which last, being left unfinished at the author's decease, was completed by Mr. Hallet.

In 1731, Mr. Benson proposed to himself to carry on this important work, and commenced with a Paraphrase and Notes on the Epistle to Philemon, attempted in imitation of Mr. Locke's manner; with an Appendix, in which it is shewn, by manifest indications derived from this short epistle, that St. Paul was neither an enthusiast nor an impostor, and that, consequently, the Christian religion must be, as he has represented it, heavenly and divine. This specimen was so favourably received, that the author was encouraged to proceed with his plan, and shortly afterwards brought out a Paraphrase and Notes on the first Epistle to the Thessalonians. The second epistle appeared in the following year, accompanied by two dissertations on the Kingdom of God, and on the Man of Sin, spoken of 2 Thess. II. 3-12. In this latter discourse, he states the usual Protestant exposition of this remarkable prophecy with great clearness and ability; and, probably, his argument is just, as far as it goes. Certainly, the particulars enumerated are so closely applicable to the peculiarities of the Church of Rome, that every person who reads the passage with attention and candour must see the propriety of the application. At the same time, it is observable, on the one hand, that there were other corruptions, both in respect of doctrine, discipline, and practice, much more closely impending, and in which it is reasonable to suppose that the Thessalonians would take a nearer, indeed a personal, interest,—and, on the other, that if we extend our views of its application to more distant ages, it is difficult to perceive why the Apostle should be supposed to limit himself to a denunciation of the apostacy and corruption which prevailed in one portion of the Christian world, when it is but too manifest that the same principles and the same antichristian spirit have prevailed, and exercised a most pernicious influence in almost every age, country, and denomination of professing Christians. Wherever any form of Christianity has been established by the interference and patronage of the civil power, we have commonly seen too clear indications of the disposition to assume unholy dominion, and to lord it over the consciences of men, which is here characterized under the figurative expression of the man of sin. The spirit of intolerance and persecution was little less conspicuous in the ranks of the reformers than among the adherents of the Romish church, and led to the same dreadfull excesses and flagrant violations of the law of Christ, in a narrower sphere and to a less extent, only because their power and their opportunities of exercising it were more limited. We may hope, however, that this spirit is in a great measure abated, and that few would now be found to hesitate in receiving the admonition with which our author concludes: Let us ever take care to watch against a persecuting spirit, in all the branches and degrees of it, and to lay the great stress of religion where the scriptures of the New Testament have laid it,—not in abstruse notions and unintelligible subtleties,—not in forms and ceremonies, or an empty profession of the best and purest religion; but in the sincere love of God and one another,—in a due governing of our passions and sensual appetites, and the habitual practice of universal holiness. For what signifies it what church any man belongs to, what profession of religion he makes, or what advantages he enjoys, if he doth not love God, and keep his commandments? If he abuses his liberty to licentiousness, and in the midst of such marvellous light shews that he prefers darkness, by leading a scandalous and wicked life, which, of all others, is the blackest heresy, and the most flagrant and notorious corruption and apostacy?

This dissertation was afterwards published in a separate form, in a small volume, entitled A Collection of Tracts; comprising also the letter concerning the design and end of prayer, the review of predestination, and a brief account of the persecution and death of Servetus, originally inserted in the weekly paper called the Old Whig, or Consistent Protestant; a publication to which several other eminent dissenters of that day were occasional contributors. To these were added, in a later edition, a defence of the Brief Account, a Narrative of the cruel treatment of Dr. Leighton, by Archbishop Laud, and an ingenious Essay on the Belief of Things which are above Reason. This last contains as distinct and satisfactory a statement of the argument for the rational opinion on this subject as is any where to be met with in so small a compass.

In 1733 appeared the Paraphrase and Notes on the first Epistle to Timothy and the Epistle to Titus, which were followed in the succeeding year by the second Epistle to Timothy; thus completing, when taken in connexion with the previous labours of Locke and Peirce, the entire series of St. Paul's writings. To these were added dissertations on inspiration,—on the abolition of the ceremonial part of the Mosaic law, and on the settlement of the primitive church. Our author's account of the inspiration of the scriptures, (at least of the Christian scriptures,) coincides nearly with that afterwards advanced by Michaelis in his Introduction to the New Testament; assuming that the apostles, and they alone, were so far furnished with a full and complete scheme of what they were to teach concerning the Christian doctrine, as to be empowered to authenticate any writing, or give it a title to rank as canonical Christian scripture. If this be the proper criterion of an inspired writing, it becomes necessary, in order to establish the authority of two of the Gospels, to assume that Mark gives, in fact, the testimony of St. Peter, with whom he is understood to have been chiefly connected, and that Luke's narrative is confirmed by the apostolic authority of St. Paul. These assumptions may by some be thought somewhat arbitrary and gratuitous; and it may not appear very obvious why it should be considered necessary to seek for any other authority, in the Gospel of Luke for example, than that to which he himself lays claim, when he tells us, that it seemed good to him also, having traced every thing from the first exactly, to set forth in order a narrative, that his friend might know the truth of those things wherein he had been instructed. Our author's good sense, at the same time, shews him the folly of ascribing divine inspiration to every passing remark or illustration which occurs in the epistles. It is enough if we receive the great truths and facts on which the Christian system is raised in reliance on their testimony, and the doctrines or conclusions which they professedly teach on apostolic authority, without attempting to ascribe to inspiration that which any man might as well say or do without it. With respect to the abolition of the ceremonial law, his opinion is, that while the Jewish Christians, like all others, remained universally and every where bound by the moral law, those resident in Judaea, and they only, were bound by the political or judicial part of the Mosaic law, which was, in fact, a part of the civil constitution of the state to which they belonged; but that from the ritual part, whether at home or abroad, they were de jure absolved, immediately upon their embracing Christianity. If, nevertheless, they continued to observe it, this was partly owing to the influence of their own prejudices, zealous for the law, and strongly attached to the religious peculiarities of their nation, and partly to a desire not unnecessarily to offend the prejudices of others, which might occasionally lead them with St. Paul, in things not sinful, to become all things to all men, that by any means they might gain some.

In his view of the early settlement of the Christian church, it appears that Mr. Benson availed himself considerably of the observations thrown out by Lord Barrington in his Miscellanea Sacra, and particularly of the distinct account given by him of the gifts of the Spirit, by which the apostles and first preachers of Christianity were enabled to spread and confirm the Gospel. His lordship and Mr. Benson frequently corresponded on the subject of Scripture criticism; and how favourable an opinion that noble writer formed of our author's paraphrase and notes, appears from a letter of his to Mr. Benson, written in November 1734:—I received the favour of your second Epistle to Timothy, and have looked it carefully over; and can now return you my thanks for the kind present you have made, and for the instruction I have received from it at the same time. The History of the state of things, &c. is very full and clear. The Synopsis, short and comprehensive. The full meaning of the Apostle seems every where to be pursued in the paraphrase and notes. Many of them are what I have not met with in other critics and commentators, and are at the same time extremely well supported. The two essays are very accurate, and of great importance towards letting us into the true state of things in those times, relating to the planting and settling of the churches, and the exercise of the spiritual gifts. There is but little in which I can differ from you.

Of this work, taken as a whole, it is not, perhaps, too much to say, and it is a high commendation, that it is not unworthy to be ranked as a sequel to the labours of Locke and Peirce. It immediately placed the author's name at a high point in the catalogue of liberal, rational, and learned theologians—a station which he did not forfeit by his later writings.

In 1735, Mr. Benson published the History of the first planting of the Christian Religion, taken from the Acts of the Apostles and their Epistles, together with the remarkable facts of the Jewish and Roman history which affected the Christians within this period. In this work, says Dr. Amory,

Memoir, Prefixed to the life of Christ, p. XI.